Blow for Pakistan Football League as partner company pulls out

KARACHI: Things are going from bad to worse for the Pakistan Football League with its partner company Redstrike Sports — which helped bring a bevy of former football stars to the country — announcing on Wednesday that it was pulling out.
The PFL was launched at a gala ceremony in Lahore back in July with the eight-team franchise league, which was coming in as a standalone entity and not sanctioned by the Pakistan Football Federa­tion, set to kick off in November.
It had backing from the government however but now has a question mark hanging over its fate following Redstrike’s pullout.
Redstrike said that it had moved “amid growing concerns regarding the league’s funding and unpaid invoices to key suppliers”. It comes after Zabe Khan, the former chief operating officer of Global Soccer Ventures, the former guise of the PFL, distanced himself from the league.
A spokesperson for Redstrike told Dawn that it hadn’t received scheduled payments from PFL UK Holdings, led by chairman Farhan Junejo and chief operating officer Ahmer Kunwer.
“We had a retainership with the PFL where they had to pay us every month but they haven’t done so for the last three,” Redstrike’s spokesperson told Dawn.
“We have tried contacting them several times but they’ve not responded to us at all.”
Despite its grand launch ceremony, questions continued to persist whether the PFL will actually be able to kick off.
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2024