‘Made in Pakistan’ In partnership with China, Pakistan is producing the footballs used in this year’s winter in Doha, Qatar, for the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Khawaja Masood Akhtar, the chairman of forwarding Sports, an Adidas contract manufacturer, was quoted by DAWN as saying,
We have once again been chosen to supply footballs for the World Cup, which is an honor for us and a testimony of the quality we have maintained.
Al-Rihla, which translates to “the Journey” in Arabic, is the name of the official World Cup match ball, which was unveiled by Adidas in Doha in March.
Although Adidas forbids Forward Sports from disclosing the precise quantity of footballs it will provide for the World Cup, Akhtar stated that it is “not in thousands but millions.”
“We have made some changes in (the design of) footballs this time, keeping Qatar’s culture, environment, architecture, and flag in mind,” he said in reference to the official football design.
The footballs, according to Akhtar, will be “thermo-bonded,” environmentally friendly, and were made for the first time exclusively with water-based inks and glues.
Before the 2014 World Cup, Pakistan had provided hand-stitched footballs for most of the World Cups between the 1990s and 2010. Thermo-bonded footballs were first introduced during that tournament. Their panels are made without stitches and are fused together using heat, the most recent technology that Adidas adopted and gave to forwarding Sports in 2013.
Additionally, Forward Sports, which currently manufactures footballs for the German Bundesliga, French League, and Champions League, served as the official supplier of footballs for the 2014 and 2018 World Cups in Brazil and Russia. Meanwhile, the business has not been hampered by rising inflation, energy prices, or labor costs.
According to its chairman, “everything is going as planned, as we drew up our plans with all these considerations in mind. In order to guarantee on-time deliveries, we have even hired a little extra help.
Sports equipment like cricket bats, hockey sticks, shining (for both cricket and hockey), and accessories like kits, shoes, and gloves are also exported from Sialkot. Sports goods exports from Pakistan bring in $1 billion annually, with $350 million to $500 million coming from football alone.
