PAKISTAN continues to play a major role in producing official footballs for global giants. Sialkot has long been celebrated worldwide for exporting quality products, and contributes significantly to the national exports mix. Yet, alongside this industrial success lies an enduring challenge.

Sialkot and its surrounding districts remain home to tens of thousands of workers, many of them women, engaged in hand-stitching footballs and other sports gear for global brands. While premium match balls retail internationally for well over $150, the workers in Pakistan typically earn only a fraction of this value; often less than a dollar per ball completed.

Although measures, such as the Atlanta Agreement of the late 1990s, brought some formalisation to the industry, issues around living wages, worker representation and social security persist, particularly for home-based and ‘informal’ workers. If Sialkot’s role in global sports manu-facturing is rightly a source of pride, that narrative should also reflect in the lived reality of those whose skill and labour sustain it, ensuring that celebrations of export success are matched by efforts to improve labour outcomes at home.

Safina Zahoor
Lahore

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2026