Pakistan Football | News & Discussions

Abid123 said:
Mubarak boys:) Confirmed!

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


@Kambojaric @Fatman17 @_NOBODY_ @PAKISTANFOREVER @Dalit @Distant_Observer @Waz @RocketLaw @hasssanali8998
Click to expand...


Pretty big, all of the teams in this tourney are ranked much higher then us, means we will have good competition, a win or two or even a few draws will do wonders for our confidence.
 
Cricket aside, they should forget about other sports like hockey, squash and badminton.

Focus most of the funding on football. The other sports to compete in are tennis, boxing, MMA, golf and motorsports.

I think they are spreading themselves too thin at the moment.

Without a doubt when the league goes live it will have eyeballs and will draw in crowds. Especially the inter city derbies.

Asia should have it own version of the champions league too. And the top 2 from the league can qualify for it. Middle east countries should be not be involved, they should have their own.
 
Last edited:
Its cultural too, why Pakistani football is piss poor bc of the Pakistanis back home. it’s sad to me to think that the Pakistan could be a very good country in football. Instead we have a mediocre team.
 
KingQamaR said:
Its cultural too, why Pakistani football is piss poor bc of the Pakistanis back home. it’s sad to me to think that the Pakistan could be a very good country in football. Instead we have a mediocre team.
Click to expand...
Pakistan lacks a sporting "culture" back than wrestling and kabbadi used to be big but even thats not the case anymore
Id love to see more kabbadi, wrestling action like they have in Iran, Russia etc
We can do a good job with wrestling and kabbadi (affiliated team sports)

I think soccer's too competitive for us. We might be decent at it though you never know, but I have low expectations.
 
Abid123 said:
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


@Kambojaric @Fatman17 @_NOBODY_ @PAKISTANFOREVER @Dalit @Distant_Observer @Waz @RocketLaw @hasssanali8998
Click to expand...

Of all the countries to seek to represent, UAE??

He can kindly fk off.

Edit: to go further, this is precisely what Gulfie nations have been doing for some time now, especially Qatar who have had Brazilians, Spaniards and i think Italians on their cards at various points. It's not a bad strategy to be fair, and will eventually yield some small results, but their fundamental problem is a lack of any domestic structure that brings value to the grass roots game. KSA has done it differently and has gone big on a domestic league, which I think will reap rewards eventually.
 
World Cup 2026 - Pakistan (still a member in FIFA)

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


World-Cup-2026-Pakistan-Flag.jpg

Someday Insha'Allah!
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.


We can do it!
 
Pakistan's last hand-stitched football makers keep a fading craft alive as machines reshape the world's game.


The world's game begins far from the stadiums, in homes and workshops where footballs are still stitched by hand.

The finished football finds its true purpose, connecting the craftsmanship of Sialkot's artisans with the game itself [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]​
Twenty minutes across town, the smell of rubber and diesel gives way, every so often, to crushed sugarcane and the sweetness of ripe mangoes and lychees piled high on roadside carts. Here, in a modest three-room house, Abida Hussain stitches footballs much as Ansar once did.
Her workshop is the drawing room at the front of her three-room family home. During the summer months, she works here alongside her husband and four daughters, transforming the space from a room to entertain guests into one for stitching footballs.
With the door left ajar, a breeze moves through the house, making it more comfortable to bear the warm summer days. In winter, the family moves further inside and works from the living room, which also serves as a bedroom at night. A charpai (lightweight bed) remains in the middle of the room during the day so they can sit together and watch the latest Pakistani drama serial on the small television.
Abida Hussain (R) and her family tune into the latest Pakistani TV serial

Abida Hussain (R) and her family unwind in the evenings, tuning into the latest Pakistani television serial [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]
“We sleep on the chhat (the rooftop) in the summer because it is much cooler there than the suffocating heat that gets trapped inside the house,” says Abida, 50, as her grandson comes to ask if he can have an ice lolly.
The drawing room itself is painted in bright shades of green and pink. A chatai woven from straw covers the concrete floor beneath them.
“I just took a short break to tend to the plants in the courtyard,” she says, setting down a watering can by the door. “We all take regular breaks for 10-15 minutes every hour or so. Sometimes, we all drink lassi together, and other times I enjoy a stiff cup of chaa.
“I love taking care of my plants. I can only grow a few in this space, but I have some pots on the chhat too.”

​


Football stitching is a family affair for Abida Hussain, who works alongside her husband and daughters whenever new orders arrive [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]​
Home-based family workshops now make up only a small share of Sialkot’s registered stitching network, but, like larger centres, they are formally monitored by IMAC. Across the district, more than 700 registered centres are staffed exclusively by women, while about 500 employ only men.
One of Abida’s daughters, Sadaf Hussain, smiles before getting up to look for her father.
Before she reaches the doorway, Muhammad Hussain appears, carrying two stainless-steel glasses of lassi, asking his daughters to fetch the remaining glasses for everyone gathered in the room.
Quiet at first, he soon joins the conversation.
Muhammad has been stitching footballs since 1988. He learned the craft from his older brother, who sat him down with a needle and a panel and showed him what to do. Decades later, he has passed those skills on to his wife and daughters.
When each of the girls turned 16, he taught them how to stitch a football. One daughter now teaches at a primary school but knows she can fall back on the craft if she ever needs to. The others continue to work alongside their parents.
Abida stitches between three and five footballs a day, earning the equivalent of just more than $6 when she completes five match-quality balls. Like thousands of other artisans across Sialkot, the family is paid by a local manufacturing partner that supplies kits to registered stitching centres and home workshops before collecting the finished footballs for export.
She has never considered factory work and says she would not want it for her daughters either.
“To begin with, mostly men did this job. But gradually women joined alongside managing their household,” she explains.
For Sadaf, the appeal is the freedom to earn without leaving home. “This work is the best. It is such a good way to earn money and keep ourselves busy while staying in the safety of our home,” she says. “There should be ways to expand it. Because, to tell you the truth, it is a completely different struggle once you set foot outside.”
Outside the home, she explains later, women must contend with concerns over safety, long journeys, workplace expectations and social pressures that make home-based work far more attractive.
The contradiction is not lost on the women. They know hand stitching is becoming less common, yet they still hope for more orders because the work allows them to earn without leaving home. When football orders dry up, many turn to embroidery or stitching badges for blazers worn by members of the UK armed forces, taking whatever piecework is available to bridge the gaps.
A panel for a hand-stitched football

Every finished football begins with a single panel [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]
Abida’s day begins before dawn.
“I wake for Fajr before the Azaan,” she says, pointing in the direction of the mosque across the road. "And after reading the Quran, I make breakfast - paratha and omelette or the leftover salan from the previous night - for my sons and my daughter as they get ready for work.
“That hour after the prayer belongs to me, and I look forward to having a cup of chaa with my boys,” she says of her morning ritual. “My husband and my daughters are not keen on it; they are lassi drinkers. What is chaa if not enjoyed with someone else?”
The footballs arrive as kits from Anwar Khawaja Industries, Select's local manufacturing partner. Each contains 32 pre-cut panels and a printed guide showing how they fit together.
Depending on the design, one person can finish about 15 toy balls a day, eight to 10 training balls, or no more than five match-quality footballs destined for pitches around the world.
"Football, without any doubt, has been the central character in our lives," Sadaf says. “After all, this work has paid for our education, for my sisters’ weddings. It is such a blessing that we know this craft. It helps us keep this roof over our heads, and we don’t have to worry about where our next meal will come from.”

The shrinking seam​

Can hand stitching survive the machine age?​
Muhammad Hussain stitches a football

Muhammad Hussain pulls the final stitches into place, sealing the football by hand before the knot disappears beneath its surface [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]​
About 70 percent of the world's hand-stitched footballs still begin as kits in someone's hands in Sialkot. Yet within the city itself, the craft has become an increasingly small part of the industry that made it famous.
Khurram Khawaja of Anwar Khawaja Industries has watched that change accelerate.
"Five or six years ago, hand-stitched footballs accounted for 80 to 90 percent of production in Sialkot," he says. "Today, they make up about 20 percent."
The reasons are largely economic. One worker in a factory can produce between 50 and 60 machine-stitched footballs in a day. A skilled hand stitcher completes about five.
Khawaja believes hand stitching could disappear from mainstream football production within the next eight to 10 years.
For families like the Hussains, however, the craft remains worth holding on to.
“The number of orders goes up and down, but we keep the faith and find ease and peace through it all,” says Sadaf as she makes tea with her mother and sisters.
Like her sisters, Sadaf completed her studies before choosing to stitch footballs.
"We prioritised educating our daughters," says Muhammad, "but also taught them this skill so they could earn from the comfort of their own home."
The work demands far more skill than it first appears.
Each football is stitched inside out, with every panel pulled together under immense tension before the ball is turned the right way around.
The wooden clamp serves as a sewing frame, holding the ball steady as it grows.
"The final stitch requires real skill and expertise, and a neat stitch," says Muhammad. "It requires more focus and time compared to the rest of the pieces that are stitched together."
In the Hussain household, the work has been divided naturally over the years. Abida and her daughters stitch the first 26 panels before passing each ball to Muhammad to close. Working largely by feel, he turns the ball through itself before pulling the final stitches so tightly that the knot disappears beneath the surface.

​



Women stitch footballs together at a registered centre in Sambrial [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]​
Back at the stitching centre across town, the final stage of the process is usually left to the men working upstairs.
Ansar Majeed is the exception.
With decades of experience behind her, she is the only woman at the centre who regularly closes the final six panels herself. Two others have learned, she says, but they take longer and usually leave the final stage to the men.
Years of experience have earned Ansar a certain authority among the women gathered here.
“They like a bit of banter, they like fooling around, and I let them be. But sometimes, they cause a right raucous so I have to tell them off,” she says.
The afternoon light has softened. Conversations drift between Punjabi and Urdu, punctuated by laughter, by somebody's story about somebody else. The steady rhythm of needle through rexine continues.
Once a week, usually on a Friday or a Saturday, the women pool their money and order food together: Samosas, naan tikki, biryani, shawarma or, on hotter days, just kulfi.
A mother gently rocks her baby in a makeshift cradle while working

A mother gently rocks her baby in a makeshift cradle while working [Rehan Zahid/Daairah]
“Some of these women have very young children who they have left at home to come and work here. And some return during their chilla (40-day postpartum period for rest) so they bring their babies with them,” says Ansar, glancing towards a young mother soothing her infant nearby.
Between stitches, the women talk about rising bills, school fees, family illnesses and the everyday calculations required to keep a household running. The work is repetitive, but what it supports is not.
“We get worried when we don’t receive orders,” says Ansar. “Sometimes, because of incessant rains. It can become difficult to make ends meet or make payments for bills, or the monthly committee, and we wonder what we will do, where we will get the money from. But God has been most merciful.”
Tomorrow, the women will return to their places on the chatai. Ansar will settle another football into the wooden clamp before her, and across town, Abida and her daughters will do the same.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 3 (members: 0, guests: 3)

Pakistan Defence Latest

Country Watch Latest

Latest Posts

Share this page

Back
Top