LAHORE, May 19: Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) on Wednesday announced a revised schedule of the first National "A" League matches, which would kick off from May 28 , halving the number of matches to 17 from 36 planned earlier.

According to earlier schedule, 36 matches involving 10 out of a total 16 teams, were to be held at Rawalpindi/Islamabad, but now only 17 matches would be staged at Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Mardan and Dera Ismail Khan.

Eight departmental teams namely PTCL, Army, KRL, Wapda, KPT, HBL, ABL, Navy and two NWFP's clubs, Young Eleven (Dera Ismail Khan) and Mardan Club (Mardan) are to compete on home and away basis.

The four departmental teams based in Rawalpidi/ Islamabad Army, KRL, Navy and PTCL will play their home and away matches in the cities they are based. Two other departmental teams based in Karachi, KPT and Habib Bank will play matches against each other. Similarly, Wapda and ABL based in Lahore will face each other there.

Only Young Eleven will visit Mardan to take on Mardan Club and then start travelling to other cities to play matches. A separate schedule of league matches will be announced later, after six more provincial clubs, two each fromP unjab, Balochistan and Sindh qualify for the league.

Revised schedule: May 28: Army v KRL (Army Stadium, Rawalpindi); Wapda v ABL, KPT v HBL; Mardan Club v Young Eleven; Navy v PTCL