It's a long way from the glamour of the Champions League butthe first professional football league in Afghanistan kicked-off earlier thisweek to fan fever, goals and vibrant enthusiasm in Kabul.
The modest stadium of the Afghan football federation waspacked to a near capacity crowd of some 3,500, with the crowd largely made upof men only sections apart from a small one where families and women werewelcomed by officials in a country where human rights are a constant debate.Les Maiwand Atalan (Heroes of Maiwand), - a mythical mountain in the unstableregion of the Helmand province - took to the pitch and defeated the ShaneenAsmayee (The Asmayee Eagles) 3-1 to great applause in the first match of thenewly founded Afghan premier league (APL), a tournament that culminates onOctober 19.
"I'm very proud of what we've achieved today. I'm proudthat we managed to organise such an event and I would like to send morepositive messages, not only about today." enthused APL commissioner SaidShafir Gawar. He said "Most of theAfghan population is young people. They're under 25. We would like to bring ourmessage to the majority of Afghans, and to the world, that Afghans can playtogether, and that we have teams composed of different tribes, of differentethnicities.
"If you look at the Kandahar team, they are not onlycomposed of Pashtuns. They are Hazaras and other ethnicities too,"continued Shafir Gawari. Eight teams will meet during a group phase whichdetermines semi-finalists and eventual finalists for a total of 16 matches, alltelevised across the country on two of the leading networks, one in Dari, theother in Pashtun, the two most popular languages.
A novel twist has also been thrown into the competition witha section of APL players being chosen from TV reality shows and an event thatattracted the applications of thousands of young Afghans.
