Qalandri Sports Ground (Gizri, Karachi) saw Irfan Memorial (Landhi, DFA East) beat Young Rasheedabad (Baldia Town) 5-2 to advance to next round of All-Karachi Abdur Rasheed Memorial Football Tournament. Fazal Baloch opened the scoring for Irfan Memorial in 6th minute before Shoaib Khan doubled the lead in 11th minute as Irfan Memorial maintained their grip in the game by being 2-0 up at half time. Soon after restart, Abdur Rehman reduced the deficit to 2-1 for Young Rasheedabad but Abdullah made it 3-1 Irfan Memorial a minute later. Abdullah then made it 4-1 in 50th minute as Irfan Memorial increased their lead. Abdur Rehman again scored for Young Rasheedabad in 54th minute to make it 4-2, but Irfan Memorial did not budge further. In dying seconds of the game, Muhammad Inam made it 5-2 for the winners to confirm Irfan Memorial’s easy victory.
Referees were Mehmood Lasi, Imam Bakhsh Baloch, Ghulam Ali, and match commissioners were Babu Bhai and Zubair Ali Baloch. According to tournament organising secretary Zahid Baloch, the remaining matches of the Abdur Rasheed Tournament will be played after Eid-ul-Fitr.
The match was attended by chief guest and senior vice president of Karachi DFA East, Muhammad Rahim. He declared his interest in amicably solving problems facing the football clubs of Landhi and Korangi as well as announcing that these localities will be allowed to run their own 16 team tournaments with full backing of DFA East so that football is not compromised. M Rahim also announced that DFA East will present Qalandari Sports FC with 8 footballs at the final of the Abdur Rasheed Tournament. Others guests present were Syed Usman Shah (vice president DFA East), Dr Moin (chairman Qalandari Sports), Riaz Ahmed (journalist, president Irfan Memorial), Khalid Majeed et al.
Karachi DFA Central announced holding the 2nd All-Karachi Ramzan-ul-Mubarak Floodlit Football Cup 2011 at Ghausia Sports football ground, New Karachi from 5th August 2011 onwards. 16 teams will participate in this knock-out format tournament with matches starting at 11 PM at night. According to tournament organising secretary Hameed Ullah Khan, Gulshan Soccer will face New Karachi United in first game of the tournament, with Syed Usman Shah (DFA East vice president) being chief guest who will also inaugurate the tournament.
The tournament committee will feature ex-international M Saleem Patni as chairman, M Shamim vice chairman, Adam Jan tournament secretary, media cooridnator Abdul Karim, with others members being Hosam Uddin, Rehman Turk, Mama Naeem, Khalid Majeed, and Wasim Alam.
The officials from the Korangi and Landhi football clubs praised DFA East’s Muhammad Rahim for taking the initiative to alleviate their problems and complaints by establishing a dedicated coordination office at DFA East’s old premises in Korangi Dhai. Previously, club officials from Korangi and Landhi would had to travel to the main district office at Drigh Road to submit any complaints, and discuss matters with DFA East officials. The new coordination office will cut down unnecessary travel costs and time wasting in order to effectively coordinate with Korangi and Landhi clubs.
The club officials mentioned that DFA East has a total of 6 members from Landhi and Korangi alone, which makes it 50% of the total DFA East membership, while the total registered clubs from Landhi and Korangi make up more than 50% of all DFA East affliated clubs. So Korangi and Landhi teams were relieved that DFA East has taken the initiative to be open and fair to properly address their grievances with the new coordination office.
The club officials hoped that Syed Usman Shah, Arshad Ali Hashmi, H M Hanif, Muhammad Imran and Muhammad Jamil will be cooperative to their messages from now on.