The most anticipated event for all football lovers, 21st FIFA world cup is taking place in Russia this year. As the number of tourists are travelling to Russia to witness the biggest football event, there is another reason for Pakistanis to look froward to FIFA world cup.
The footballs will be manufactured in Sialkot, a city of Pakistan. The footballs are going to be integrating technology that will be a major transformation from the footballs being used before.
This time, the footballs will be equipped with sensor chips with Near Field Communication (NFC) tech that will be synced with smartphones. The chips require enabling of NFC on your phone. It allows a user to interact with the ball using their smartphone. When a user interacts with the ball, each ball generates an identifier and unlocks exclusive information for the user. The personalised experience provides details of each ball in a display. This is the first time that these NFC Chip embedded balls are being used in an official match.
Telstar 18 is manufactured in Pakistan at Forward Sports, in Sialkot. The ball is thermally bonded and heat is used to patch the pieces instead of stitches. The seamless surface of Telstar is designed to ensure efficient ball control and minimize water absorption.
Forward Sports was also the official football provider of Brazil 2014 World cup and again an interview of Khawaja Masood, CEO of Forward Sports to Anadolu Agency in February this year confirmed that they will be providing football for World cup 2018.
TechJuice reached out to Khawaja Masood for their exclusive comment and we will update the article as we get a response from them.
Forward Sports also manufactured first of its kind, mini airless football in February this year. This mini air-less machine made football was manufatured by making use of advanced manufacturing technology.
It is nothing strange as world’s biggest leagues like English Premier League, LaLiga, Ligue 1 an UEFA Champions League use balls that are manufactured in Sialkot. Sialkot exports more that 40 million footballs.
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