FW: ROLE OF SIALKOT(PAKISTAN) IN THE MAKING OF FIFA BALL!

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Rashid Makhdoom

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Jul 12, 2014, 4:50:04 PM7/12/14

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From: Farid Randhawa
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2014 1:44 AM
Subject: ROLE OF SIALKOT(PAKISTAN) IN THE MAKING OF FIFA BALL!

One man's dream come true: Making the official ball for the 2014 FIFA World Cup

The Forward Sports factory is the only one in the area that employs women. (Annabel Symington/GlobalPost)

SIALKOT, Pakistan — When the world’s top soccer players take to the pitch in Brazil this summer for the FIFA World Cup, few will spare a thought for the ball. But as the teams battle it out for victory and the chance to lay their hands on the World Cup trophy, those orbs on the field will show that one man has already achieved his goal.

Khwaja Masood Akhtar, owner and CEO of Forward Sports in Sialkot, Pakistan, has long dreamed of producing the official ball for the FIFA World Cup. Forward Sports is one of the major suppliers for Adidas, the official brand sponsor for the 2014 games.

In the boardroom at Akhtar's factory is a stand proudly showcasing all the balls his factory has made for major soccer events. He has made the official ball for Europe's UEFA Champions League, the Africa Cup of Nations and the German Bundesliga. But the top position of the stand has remained empty, waiting for an official FIFA World Cup ball.

In 2010, when the last World Cup took place in South Africa, the official ball was exclusively manufactured by a factory in Shenzhen, China. But this year, Akhtar's factory is also making the official ball, which has been named the Brazuca in reference to the host nation of this year’s World Cup, Brazil.

"When they announced that we would be making the official ball we had a party," said Akhtar, as we toured his factory. "This gives us good satisfaction that this big brand has trusted us that the job can be done in Pakistan. It is very exciting, not only for me but for my colleagues and the country."

In the boardroom of Akhtar's factory is a stand showcasing the balls made for major sporting events. Up until now, the top position has remained empty, awaiting a World Cup ball. (Annabel Symington/GlobalPost)

Pakistan is not a country commonly associated with soccer — or football, as soccer is called in most countries apart from the United States. The South Asian nation is better known for its prowess on the cricket pitch. It is cricket, not football, that is played in narrow back alleys in cities and towns or on any spare open stretch of ground in villages across the country: an empty bottle crate for a wicket and a homemade bat fashioned out of a wooden plank. A tennis ball carefully wrapped in tape produces that distinctive 'tok' of bat on ball.

But Pakistan is the undisputed champion of football making. For more than a century, the garrison town of Sialkot, in the northeast just a few miles from the border with India, has been producing hand-stitched footballs. Today the industry is increasingly mechanized, and Sialkot's football makers produce around 60 million footballs a year, making up 70 percent of the world’s production.

Akhtar acknowledges that it is Pakistan’s plentiful cheap labor that has allowed him to compete with China, where labor costs have risen sharply in recent years. Akhtar says that he pays his workers the minimum wage, currently 10,000 rupees per month (US$102).

But the industry has had to sharply clean up its act. In the ’90s, Sialkot’s football industry became notorious for child labor. Most footballs were then stitched by workers at home, and sold to a middleman, which made it difficult to tell who was actually stitching the balls.

While a series of initiatives in the late ’90s by UNICEF and the International Labor Organization, supported by the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and the major brands including Adidas and Nike, removed the practice from the big factories, some of the hand-stitched balls produced by small suppliers are still made by workers at home.