Afghanistan launches first professional football league More than 250 Maiwand fans had left Kandahar and Helmand in the early hours and braved one of the country's most dangerous roads for a six-hour coach journey to cheer on their new team. Yes we have troubles in Kandahar and explosions, but we also have many heroes in Kandahar. These sporting heroes help us forget," said Assad, a university student who had bunked off his classes to watch. We didn't know we had such good players before this. It will be very beneficial for the national team," he added. The tournament, played on an AstroTurf pitch close to the city's main stadium, has been sanctioned by both Fifa and the Asian football confederation, but has a distinctly Afghan feel. Pashtu and Dari pop music blared through the stadium speakers before the match and the police guarding the venue all carried AK-47s. Midway through the second half, as the sun sank towards Kabul's mountains and behind a Nato surveillance blimp, the spectators took time from cheering to lay out their cotton shawls as mats and pray. The league is sponsored by some of the country's biggest companies, including the Roshan mobile phone network, Afghanistan International Bank and Moby Media Group. Players' modest wages of £6 per day, are supplemented by wealthy supporters and patrons. While Maiwand powered towards a comfortable 3-0 win, the stadium announcer listed gifts being showered on the team as Kandahari businessmen and MPs in the "VVIP area" vied to outdo each other's largesse. Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, the Afghan attorney general, gave them 100,000 Afghani (£1,200). Lalai Hamidzai, an MP who reportedly grabbed a police heavy machine gun and fired on Taliban fighters as they assaulted parliament in April, gave $5,000 (£3,000) to the players. Even the referees received $300 from one Kandahari elder. Football has long been popular in Afghanistan and the national football federation was admitted into Fifa in 1948, but the quality of the national team has suffered from the absence of a nationwide league. Shafic Gawhari, one of the league's commissioners, said he wanted to strengthen football in the country, but he also hoped it might strengthen national unity. He said: "We have got all these players coming from different parts of the country and they are coming together for six weeks on this platform. They are idols for a lot of kids and a lot of players in the provinces. If they compete in the right way, that will have a huge positive impact on nation building.