FOOTBALL: SCORING A BETTER FUTURE [Dawn]

by Taha Goheer

On August 2, a youth football team comprising boys primarily from the Lyari and Malir communities in Karachi defeated a Norwegian club, to claim the U-15 title in the 2025 edition of the Norway Cup. This marked the first time a youth team from Pakistan had won an international tournament.

The Norway Cup is the largest youth football tournament in the world, where more than 2,000 teams of boys and girls participate across multiple age categories, ranging from U-6 to U-19. Categories encompass 3v3 and 5v5 match-ups up till the U-10 level, and 7-a-side and 11-a-side match-ups for all higher categories. Participating teams hail from 60 countries across the globe, totalling more than 25,000 individual players.

The Pakistani team that did wonders is named Better Future Pakistan (BFP). The U-15 category they competed in was one of the most popular: 144 teams entered the tournament. In the first round, BFP topped their group, winning all three of their matches without conceding and scoring 16 goals in the process.

This allowed them to skip the Round of 128 and proceed directly to the Round of 64, where they defeated Levanger FK 4-0. Levanger FK competes in the third division of Norwegian football. In the Round of 32, BFP faced Skeid, a professional team in the second division of Norwegian football, for their toughest test yet, eking out a 4-2 win. Dispatching Stjørdals-Blink 4-0 in the Round of 16 earned BFP a berth in the quarterfinals, where they beat Greåker IF 4-2. In the semi-finals, Gjelleråsen was swept aside in a comprehensive 4-1 victory.

Reaching the finals matched BFP’s own achievement from last year, when they lost on penalties. Roared on by a small contingent of the Pakistani diaspora based in Oslo, they took the field determined to go one step further. They controlled the final against Gjøvik-Lyn FK, winning 2-0, courtesy goals from Ahmed Ali and Owais.

Cue the celebrations, cue the Dil Dil Pakistan playbacks.

But who are these Better Future Pakistan kids?

Better Future Pakistan was founded by six Norwegian-Pakistanis in 2017 in a bid to give back to the underprivileged communities in Pakistan. They started off by distributing sewing machines and training the women who received them to promote financial independence. But this didn’t align with the passion that united the six friends: sports in general and football in particular.

So the six, namely Farooq Ansari, Soliman Sarwar, Imran Ullah, Omar Rafiq, Atif Mir and Imran Tariq, decided to assist football institutions within Pakistan. For the first few years, they were more like consultants: helping teams register in international tournaments, helping high-potential players find clubs abroad, enlightening Pakistani coaches on tactics and training regimes, and providing training to children and clubs on the nutritional requirements for football players.

And they had the credentials to undertake this; Omar Rafiq and Imran Tariq are professional referees in Norway, and almost all of them have coaching experience with youth teams.

However, this didn’t create the impact they had aimed for. So in 2022, Better Future Pakistan opened a football club as a non-profit organisation in Malir, where they would train young, talented players from impoverished backgrounds who might not have the resources required to play the game at a high level.

They built the club around their head coach, Abdul Rasheed, a man with more than 15 years of coaching experience at the highest level of Pakistani football. “We had known Rasheed sahib for quite a while, and we knew he was the right person to coach these young kids,” comments Imran Ullah, one of the founders of BFP. “Surprisingly, none of us six is from Karachi, but we chose Karachi for our football club because of the passion people have for the game here.”

Soon, the football club moved to Lyari, keeping the Malir branch operational for children under 11. A scouting network was established to identify the most talented children across Karachi and another team was tasked to run background checks on the kids identified.

“We must ensure that everyone who comes into the academy is deserving of their place,” explains Imran. “We can’t have someone who isn’t talented or who doesn’t have the will to improve, because that would deprive someone more deserving of a spot. Likewise, we can’t have someone from an affluent background, as that would mean someone talented who couldn’t afford private academies would miss out.” Shortlisted children are then passed through trials, to ensure the best make it in.

Within a couple of years, BFP was sending a team to participate in the Norway Cup, finishing runners-up in the U-15 boys’ category. “We were unfortunate, because we were unbeaten through the entire tournament and only lost the final on penalties,” says Imran. “But reaching the final was a massive achievement too, and showcased how quickly these boys improve when they have the right resources available. This is because of their talent, but also because they’re willing to learn.”

Another contributor to the rapid improvement is Kristian Carlsen, a UEFA certified coach with over 20 years of experience across the world, with whom BFP has partnered.

“2025 has been the best year for us so far,” beams Imran. “Two of our kids, Kashif and Subhan Karim, made it to the U-17 national team, which was a very proud moment for us. Then we won the Norway Cup, going one better than last year, with an entirely new team. We made sure to give opportunities to new players, even though some players from last year were still eligible and willing to participate. But the biggest achievement for us was setting up our girls’ team under a female coach and their participation in the Norway Cup, where they topped their group and won two matches.”

Role models are necessary to promote girls taking up sport, and Imran acknowledges that the Pakistan Women’s Football team and, especially, Karachi-based players like Suha Hirani doing well recently helped with girls enrolling in the academy. “We hope our success in the Norway Cup inspires more girls to take up the sport. That will be our legacy.”

Looking forward, Imran says they’re working on two streams. First, finding their players career opportunities as back-up to their football careers. “While we want all our players to succeed as professional footballers, we also acknowledge it is very difficult. With Mohsen Gilani coming in as PFF President and Nolberto Solano as the coach for the national team, we hope our league structure will return, helping our kids land full-time professional contracts.

“However, in Karachi’s landscape, where more than a million children don’t go to school, anyone who doesn’t make it as a professional will be severely financially compromised. So, we’ve partnered with the Alkhidmat Foundation to provide the kids with skills education to ensure everyone has a back-up option ready.”

The second stream is an expansion of the academy and sustained excellence. “Running this operation is very costly,” points out Imran. “Providing children with the right equipment and gear, meals with the right nutritional value and accommodation to outstation kids — we have some kids from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan on our roster too. And then, participation in tournaments — flights, accommodation, visa and documentation fees.

“We have some sponsors, and we were recognised by the mayor of Karachi and the governor of Sindh last year, but we lack funding from within Pakistan,” adds Imran. “To ensure we can induct more children and participate in more tournaments in Europe and the Middle East, we’d like to make a humble appeal to the governments of Sindh and Pakistan. A little sponsorship from your end in the form of finances, or a new ground, could do wonders to our project and bring further laurels to our country.”

The writer is a sports enthusiast with a background in supply chain management. X: @tahagoheer

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 17th, 2025