LAHORE, Dec 24: Eight teams will take part in the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) League for the departmental leg to be held in four different cities from Dec 28 to Jan 26.

The matches will be played in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, simultaneously.

In all, 15 matches will be played and the top team will earn a slot in 2009’s Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL), replacing one of the two relegated teams — Pakistan Steel and Pakistan Television — who finished 13th and 14th this year.

The champions in the PFF League’s club leg will be the other team to fill the gap after getting elevation. The club leg is to start from January 7.

The newly-formed Lahore-based ELBA Pure Water (EPW) team will be making its debut in the eight-team event where the other teams will be two-times national champion Pakistan Railways, 1986 national champion Pakistan Air Force, 1979 National Football Challenge Cup winner Sindh Government Press (SGP), Pakistan Police, Pakistan Public Works Department (PPWD), Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The PFF League is the federation’s tier-II competition. The two-tier system in domestic soccer has been adopted on the lines of league events in Europe and South America. The first tier is called the Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) and the second the PFF League.

PFF League first kicked off in 2004. The PFF later made modifications to it in order to keep the clubs in the competition as well. They reserved one place for a club team to gain momentum and enter the PPFL, which already has two club teams — Afghan Club and Punjab Medical College.