The National Challenge Cup 2023 by Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) will roll into action from January 2023.
Pakistan’s premier competition, the National Challenge Cup, will feature the highest — 32 — departmental teams across the country vying for the prestigious title, which will be defended by 2020 champions WAPDA.
These teams are divided into eight 08 Groups and each group contains four (04) teams. Stage one will start on January 1 and last till February 11 and will be played at Zonal and Centralized (eight 08) cities (Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Chaman, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Bahawalpur) while the venue for the final stage will be announced later.
Each team of every group will play six (06) matches, three (03) will be home-based and the rest of the three are away. The top two (02) teams from each group will make it to the ‘round of 16’, which will be followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final. The winner of the tournament will get 1 million while the runners-up and 3rd position will bag 500,000 and 250,000 respectively.
Sharing his views, Chairman of FIFA-appointed PFF Normalisation Committee Haroon Malik accompanied by NC member Shahid Niaz Khokhar and Manager Competition PFF Qamar Ali Qureshi, said: “The National Challenge Cup is back now and brings the best departmental teams and players in the country and hopefully, it will give a major boost to the domestic structure. We were striving for this for a long time and I am glad that our efforts started yielding fruit in the shape of success, he added.
On the occasion, NC member Shahid Niaz Khokar highlighted the efforts and contribution of the departments, which is the main motive behind the restoration of this premier event of the country. “The departments have remained the real roots due to which the stars of the country are shining today.”
Manager Competition PFF Qamar Ali Qureshi has said that PFF will assure the best possible facilities to the teams participating in the mega event. In this regard, the geographical spread of the competition is an example to contain the participating team’s cost.
