Football in Sialkot

Sialkot manufactures the majority of the world's hand-stitched footballs. The ball kicked in every World Cup final for decades was made by hands in Sialkot. The city's football industry is extraordinary: it has outfitted the sport globally while the city's own grassroots game has quietly grown in the shadow of that industrial legacy. The relationship is not ironic, it is a foundation.

The connection between Sialkot's manufacturing culture and its football culture is real: workers who spend their days producing footballs have a relationship with the game that is tactile and immediate. Clubs here have grown around the manufacturing districts, the cantonment, and the business community, the latter represented by a Sialkot Chamber of Commerce that has been one of Pakistan's more active private-sector football supporters. Sialkot FC's attempts at national competition reflect the city's ambition. The grassroots infrastructure is building to match it.