Karachi, May 1: Leisure Leagues Pakistan (LLP) is planning to organize events for school going children, starting from this month in Karachi, in an effort to revive school football, which has produced renowned national footballers in the past.
“We, at Leisure Leagues, are planning to revive school football with an aim to produce quality footballers once again. There was a time when many footballers make it to the national and even led the green shirts against international teams,” said LLP Area Manager Riaz Ahmed, who was the chief guest during the opening ceremony of Inter Academy Under-16 Football Cup, underway here at Ibrahim Ali Bhai Government School ground in Orangi Town No.5
He added that former Pakistan football team captains like Ali Nawaz, Qayyum Changezi, Ayub Dar, Mohammad Omar, Qadir Baksh and Ghulam Sarwar Sr.
“However, school football was later neglected and therefore we don’t have many players coming from grass-root level. We will be targeting to revive school football with an aim to produce quality footballers in future,” he reiterated.
He further said LLP would initially organize school football tournament from this month in Karachi and would later increase its scope to other cities of the country as well. LLP is already organizing different tournaments across length and breadth of the country.
On the occasion, School Principal Abdul Hafeez Mehr, Zakir Khan, International player Farooq of KPT, Mohammad Fayyaz and others were also present.
According to organizer Zakir Khan, eight teams were participating in Inter Academy Under-16 Football Cup. The teams are divided into two groups of four teams each.