2007–08 Pakistan Premier League

Changes

The Pakistan Football Federation had recently made changes to the league. It was announced that the league strength had been increased to a total of 14 teams with Habib Bank Limited, which was relegated after winning 2 and drawing 6 out of their 20 games the previous season, had been granted permission to field its team. Similarly, Pakistan Airlines, which had withdrawn its entry from the last year's edition at the eleventh hour, were also to feature in the coming event.

Format

The winners will represent Pakistan at the 2008 AFC President's Cup. The bottom two teams will be relegated to the Pakistan Football Federation League and two teams (winners and runners-up) from Pakistan Football Federation League will be promoted for the 2008-09 edition..

The matches will be held at 13:00 PST and 15:00 PST respectively on home and away basis.

This season the winning prize will be Rs. 500,000, the runners-up team will receive Rs 300,000 while the third position holder will receive Rs 100,000. All matches are likely to be supervised by neutral referees.

Venues

The 2007–08 Pakistan Premier League was staged across designated hubs rather than strict home stadia: Karachi (Peoples Sports Complex, Korangi Baloch Stadium, KPT Stadium, CDGK Stadium), Lahore (Railway Stadium, Punjab University Old Campus), Rawalpindi (Army Stadium, KRL Stadium), Islamabad (Naval Sports Complex, Jinnah Stadium), and Chaman (Government High School). Peshawar, which was also under consideration to host few matches, has been left out of the venues’ list due to financial constraints.

Teams

Stadia and locations

Season summary

The league title went to the final day of the season, with a match between Pakistan Army and WAPDA, with Army only needing a draw to retain their title, however WAPDA went on to win the match 2–1 after two goals from Arif Mehmood completing the comeback after being 0–1 down by a goal from Imran Hussain.

WAPDA won their second Premier League title and sixth top division title and became the first team to end a season undefeated.

Wohaib and Pakistan Railways were relegated to the PFF League and will be replaced next season by PFF League winners Pak Elektron and runner-ups Pakistan Steel.

Final standings

Season statistics

Scoring

• Fastest goal in a match: 43 seconds – Essa for Khan Research Laboratories against Habib Bank (12 December 2007)
• First hat-trick of the season: Adeel Ahmed for Khan Research Laboratories against Pakistan Television (19 November 2007)
• Widest winning margin: 6 goals – WAPDA 7–1 Wohaib (5 January 2008)
• Most hat-tricks scored by one player: 2
  • Arif Mehmood for WAPDA
    • WAPDA 7–1 Wohaib (5 January 2008)
    • WAPDA 4–0 Habib Bank (13 January 2008)
• Most hat-tricks by a team: 3
  • Khan Research Laboratories
    • Adeel Ahmed v Pakistan Television (19 November 2007)
    • Muhammad Rasool v National Bank (26 December 2007)
    • Yasir Afridi v Afghan Chaman (15 January 2008)
  • WAPDA
    • Arif Mehmood v Habib Bank (13 January 2008)
    • Zulfiqar Ali Shah v Wohaib (5 January 2008)
    • Arif Mehmood v Wohaib (5 January 2008)
      • This is the first time in the Premier League that two players has scored a hat-trick in a single match.
• Team with most goals scored: 64 goals – WAPDA
• Team with fewest goals scored: 11 goals – Wohaib
• Team with fewest goals conceded: 10 goals – Pakistan Army
• Team with most goals conceded: 57 goals – Wohaib

Top scorers

Hat-tricks

4 Player scored four goals

References

References

1. (2008-10-07). "PFF approves 12 match commissioners for second phase".
2. (2007-12-19). "KESC jump to 2nd spot as PIA edge out HBL".
3. (2008-11-27). "PIA brush aside bankers in Premier Football League".