MULTAN: Karachi United marked their Pakistan Premier Football League debut with a win as they beat Islamabad’s Huma FC 4-2 at the Qasim Bagh Football Stadium here on Tuesday night.

United won promotion to the country’s top tier when the Pakistan Football Federation was led by a FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee but their top-flight debut came with the league being run by the court-elected PFF led by Ashfaq Hussain Shah, which is not recognised by the global football body.

Huma were also making their PPFL debut after being inducted following several other promoted deciding to not take part in the league under Ashfaq’s PFF, whose takeover of the PFF headquarters from the NC led to a FIFA suspension on Pakistan.

It was United who got off the blocks quickly. Mohibullah’s penalty miss denied them taking a second-minute lead but they went ahead four minutes later through Amir Mubarak and were 3-0 up just past the half-hour mark when Noor scored to follow up Aqib Ali’s strike in the 24th.

Huma, though, came back fighting in the second half and despite Waseemullah’s sending off for a second yellow card in the 53rd, goals by Imam Hussain and Ali Imam Shah in the space of a minute saw them reduce United’s lead to just a single goal with just about 20 minutes to play. But Fareed snuffed their hopes of a comeback when he struck United’s fourth.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2021