The 2022 FIFA World Cup finals are to be played in Doha this winter and Pakistan is making headlines for all the positive reasons. For this mega event, Pakistan is supplying the soccer balls named as Al-Rihla, which means ‘the journey.
“We have once again been chosen to supply soccer balls for the World Cup, which is an honor for us and a testimony of the quality we have maintained,” said Khawaja Masood Akhtar, the chairman of forward Sports, a contracting manufacturer of global sports brand Adidas.
Sialkot has been famous for producing the finest quality sports goods and has been supplying footballs for mega-events for a long time. The country earns $1 billion annually from sports goods exports, including $350 million to $500 million from footballs alone.
Declining to give the exact number of footballs the company will supply for the World Cup due to restrictions from Adidas, Akhtar said it would be “not in thousands but millions”.
Meanwhile, FIFA’s Director of Marketing Jean-François Pathy mentioned that “This is a stunning, sustainable and high-quality official match ball from Adidas that will be enjoyed by stars performing at the top of their game on the world’s biggest stage in Qatar, as well as grassroots players everywhere.”
