Dostan Football League in Peshawar: A Successful Event That Exposes a Failing System
Musarrat Ullah Jan , KikxNow , Digital Creator At first glance, the ongoing “Dostan Football League” at the Peshawar Sports Complex looks like a long-overdue revival of football in the province. After nearly five years of silence, competitive matches have returned, organized under private sponsorship, featuring 17 teams from across Pakistan, including sides from Balochistan and departmental units. The matches are being held in a day-night format and will continue until April 30. On the surface, this checks all the boxes of a “successful event.” But if you step back and analyze it structurally, this league is less a success story and more a case study in systemic failure. It highlights a deeper issue: football—and sports in general—are surviving not because of the state, but despite it. Start with the most basic question: If a private organizer can pull this off, what has the provincial sports system been doing for the past five years? That’s not a rhetorical jab. It’s t...