Pakistan Never Qualified for the World Cup. But the World Cup Has Never Played Without Pakistan.
There’s a story playing out at the 2026 FIFA World Cup that most of the world’s 5 billion football fans don’t know. When a forward breaks through the defensive line, when a goalkeeper dives at the last second, when a free kick bends into the top corner, the ball at the centre of that moment was made in Pakistan.
Not imported from Europe. Not assembled in a multinational facility somewhere unspecified. Made in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan, by a company called Forward Sports, by hands that have been doing this longer than most countries have been playing organised football.
The City That Runs the Game
Despite never qualifying for the FIFA World Cup finals, Pakistan plays a significant role in global football production, with the industrial city of Sialkot serving as a major manufacturing hub for hand-stitched footballs. The city produces around 70% of the world’s hand-sewn footballs, with annual output exceeding 40 million units.
Let that sit for a moment. Seventy percent. One city. If you have ever owned a football, there is a very real chance it started its life in Sialkot.
The city contributed $2.63 billion in total exports in FY 2024-25, with 99% of production exported, making it a backbone of Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings. The football and sports goods industry directly and indirectly supports 300,000 to 400,000 workers across stitching centers, factories, leather processing, packaging, and logistics.
That is not a niche industry. That is a national institution that just happens to operate quietly, in a city most football commentators have never mentioned on air.
140 Years of Craft, Not Luck
This didn’t happen by accident or geopolitical favour. The industry’s roots are traced to the late 19th century, during British colonial rule. Around 1889, a British soldier stationed in Sialkot reportedly brought a leather football to a local saddle maker after it became damaged. That repairman fixed it. The British officer placed another order. Then another.
What followed was not a government programme or a foreign investment scheme. It was generational skill building, craftspeople passing techniques to their children, workshops growing into factories, factories growing into an export cluster that today supplies Adidas, Nike, Puma, Select, and Reebok. Generations of craftsmen have passed down stitching and manufacturing techniques, fostering a unique skill set in the local population. Sialkot manufacturers have consistently evolved to meet changing industry standards and technological advancements.
Pakistan’s first major moment on the global football stage came in 1982. In 1982, the city of Sialkot was awarded a contract to manufacture footballs for the FIFA World Cup hosted by Spain. Pakistan’s footballs for the 1982 World Cup were an upgraded version of the Adidas Tango Ball with rubber inlaid over the seams for the first time to prevent water from leaking in. As a result, it was the first World Cup ball to be water-resistant.
A technological first. From Sialkot.
Forward Sports: The Company Behind Four Consecutive World Cup Balls
Khawaja Masood Akhtar founded Forward Sports Private Limited in Sialkot in 1991 with 20 employees and a single room. Thirty-five years later, his company produces approximately 20.5 million footballs a year and has made the official match ball for four consecutive FIFA World Cups: the Brazuca for Brazil 2014, the Telstar 18 for Russia 2018, the Al Rihla for Qatar 2022, and now the Trionda for the 2026 tournament across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Four. Consecutive. World Cups.
Akhtar was a civil engineer by training. He had no background in the football industry. His uncle operated a sports goods business in Sialkot and encouraged him to join the industry. “I never imagined I would end up manufacturing footballs,” Akhtar recalled. “I had no experience in the industry, but I had a technical mindset and a close relationship with my uncle, so I accepted the challenge.”
The turning point came in 1994. When Adidas became one of the company’s clients, Akhtar said: “A major breakthrough came when Adidas partnered with us. From that point onward, I never looked back.”
In 2026, Akhtar said that the company produced 15 million footballs annually and had become Adidas’s largest football supplier after replacing a Chinese competitor.
The Trionda: Pakistan’s Most Technologically Advanced Export, Ever
The ball being played at the 2026 World Cup right now is not simply a football. The Adidas Trionda is thermally bonded from just four panels the smallest number yet for a FIFA World Cup ball. It features “connected ball technology,” a side-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) chip inside one of the four panels, providing the video assistant referee (VAR) with highly accurate ball movement data within seconds. This technology was developed with FIFA and Kinexon, based in Munich.
The integrated 500Hz motion sensor chip works alongside advanced high-speed camera systems installed across World Cup venues. By combining ball-tracking data with player-tracking technology, officials can access a real-time 3D recreation of the match. The technology can reportedly track every player and the ball around 50 times per second, helping Video Assistant Referees make faster and more accurate decisions.
This is AI hardware, embedded in a product manufactured in Punjab, Pakistan. When the FIFA World Cup 2026 kicks off across Mexico, the US, and Canada, every pass, shot, and goal will carry a quiet link to Pakistan.
The Scale Is Almost Difficult to Comprehend
Swiss photographer Stefan Bohrer, who recently documented the city’s football industry, was struck by what he found. “The sheer scale of football production in Sialkot is astonishing,” he told Talk to the Press. “Knowing that around 300,000 balls leave these factories every day makes you pause and wonder where they all end up. These balls will be kicked, shared, and celebrated by millions of people around the world, carrying with them the passion of the game and the craftsmanship of the people who make them.”
More than 80% of the soccer balls made in Sialkot are still hand-stitched, a laborious process that makes the ball more durable and gives it more aerodynamic stability. A standard football consists of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons and requires approximately 690 stitches. Each one, placed by hand.
On the economic front, momentum is only building. Between July 2025 and April 2026 alone, Pakistan exported 47.988 million footballs generating $221.8 million in revenue. Sports goods exports rose 15.86% in the first five months of FY 2025-26. Sialkot itself ranks as Pakistan’s third-largest export hub after Karachi and Lahore, with one of the country’s highest per capita incomes.
Pakistan is at the World Cup. It Always Has Been.
Since 1982, official FIFA World Cup match balls have been produced in Sialkot a fact that has gone largely unnoticed outside the industry for four decades.
Pakistan’s national team has never played at a World Cup. But Pakistani hands have shaped every ball that has decided every match, every penalty, every heartbreak and every triumph in the sport’s biggest tournament for over forty years.
“There is no secret formula behind success,” Akhtar said. “Anything is possible when there is will. Where there is a will, there is a way.”
The next time a World Cup goal is celebrated by a billion people, it was made possible by Sialkot.
