Ongoing FIFA Football World Cup is giving goosebumps to every fan with spectacular performances seen in sensational matches, especially dominance by Asian regions like Saudi Arabia, Japan and Iran who have won their matches against big teams.

Pakistan may not have qualified for World Cup but football from city of Shaheens, is ruling world football. Pakistan has manufactured footballs in 2014, 2018 and now in 2022 for third consecutive World Cup in Qatar. Just like always host of world's most popular event names ball according to their tradition. This time Arabs have named footballs, AL RIHLA.

Earlier, Pakistan manufactured football for 2018 World Cup in Russian and it was named as Telstar 18, which was produced by Forward Sports Company, trusted name among soccer player countries.

It is manufactured in Pakistan by Adidas through company in Sialkot named Forward Sports which produces over 750,000 balls per month to global brands. AL RIHLA means 'The Journey' in Arabic. Name is referred to travelogue written by famous Ibn-e-Battuta who explored Asia, Europe and Africa in 14th century. AL RIHLA is first World Cup ball to be made exclusively with water based inks and glues.

Colourful ball describes culture, architecture, iconic boats and flag of Qatar. Bball consist of CRT core which provides speed, accuracy and consistency for fast paced action and precision. Speed shell in ball is a textured polyurethane skin with new 20-piece panel shape, improving accuracy, flight stability and swerve and includes sensor in middle to help decide offside calls.

Sialkot is renowned city of Pakistan for manufacturing of international export level sports equipment.  To be very specific, Sialkot has created niche for itself in world sports goods. It has producing an estimated 70 percent of world's supply of soccer balls, which speaks volume of its capabilities.

This city houses more than one thousands factories and manufacturing units, which is unique feature of it. In terms of employment, these manufacturing units provide job opportunities to an estimated seventy thousand people. It may be recalled here that Sialkot has been in business producing soccer balls since British rule in undivided Sub-continent. In those times, soccer balls were hand-stitched by extremely skillful craftsmen, who never compromised on quality and their footballs were second to none in terms of quality. In early 80s, Pak made football became very popular world over and its in 1982, when Sialkot company secured contract for supply soccer balls to FIFA World Cup 1982 in Spain. Footballs provided for this World Cup in Spain also became first water-resistant balls for World Cup then.

Mmost striking feature of Pak-made footballs is that till now, not a single complain regarding quality has surfaced. That's why Sialkot produced soccer balls have become name synonymous with quality and soccer players believe in Pak-made balls.

One hopes that like soccer balls, Sialkot will soon become trusted name for other suppliers of world-class sports goods like bats, rackets, squash and badminton accessories and other sports goods at world level. One hopes, export-oriented sports goods business would further flourish at world level, earning valuable foreign exchange for country.

At same time, one would also hope for promotion of game of soccer in country, so that along with our soccer balls, our players also become famous worldwide. Our players can learn from example of Saudi Arabia, who made to in recent years and have produced marvelous game during ongoing FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Yes, Saudi Arabia came forth with one of huge upsets in history of Football World Cup last week, when they defeated Lionel Messi's Argentina 2-1 in Group C encounter 2-1. Scoring two goals against Argentina is big achievement in itself.

Published in The Daily National Courier, November, 30 2022

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