PESHAWAR: While, Pakistan’s industrial powerhouse, Sialkot, dominates global headlines for manufacturing top-tier, technologically advanced match balls like the Trionda and the last World Cup’s Al Rihla, as well as other state-of-the-art footballs used in major tournaments, a quieter, smaller football industry is also operating in the streets of Peshawar and many other cities around Pakistan.
While the floodlights of dedicated football grounds and green turfed courts dominate the headlines, the heart of the sport also beats on concrete and dirt patches.
Street kids and budget-conscious youth, especially residents of the Old City, where narrow streets form a cramped but boisterous playing ground, play the game with whatever they can find.
When the hard concrete ground or the repeated kicks prompts their equipment to tear, they don't buy new ones, they turn to local craftsmen like Muhammad Huzaifa to give their football dreams a new lease on life.
He sits in a crowded sports warehouse in a narrow street, next to Ghanta Ghar in the old city. He has leased the place from a sports goods seller and says his father taught him how to meticulously stitch footballs.
“During this World Cup, everyone is crazy about playing football. Even in this heat, they play in the streets, on the grounds… Anywhere they find a place to play,” says Huzaifa while threading the needle for another stitch. “On very busy days, I can get up to 40 balls to repair”.
For many young players in local neighborhoods, purchasing a new football is a luxury they cannot afford. When a ball bursts or splits along the seams from rough play on harsh gravel, the game doesn't have to stop.
Dedicated repair artisans like Huzaifa offer an accessible service, restoring severely damaged equipment to field-ready perfection for a fraction of the cost of a replacement. A new football can cost up to Rs5,000 ($18), not an easy purchase for many kids in Pakistan.
This manual restoration is a time-intensive, delicate, and highly skilled work. Passing a thick, heavy needle through multiple layers of rigid synthetic leather requires immense physical strength, while ensuring the stitches are flawlessly airtight demands absolute precision.
Using specialized, heavy-duty thread, these craftsmen must perfectly align the internal bladder and multi-ply layers by hand. This requires a lot of skill, dedication, and experience.
“A football with a good bladder and quality two-ply material… such a ball is the best kind.” says Huzaifa as he puts another stitch in the football he is working on. “Whether it has a computer chip inside it or not, the best footballs are the ones made by hand.”
On one side, massive, automated factories roll out thousands of flawless footballs for the international stage. On the other side, highly skilled individuals sit in small street shops, meticulously sewing the same sport together by hand.
By persevering in this craft, local repairers do far more than just patch up torn leather; they remove the financial barriers to play, ensuring that every kid in the community has the chance to kick a ball and keep their passion for the game alive.
