Pakistan's top-line balls to star in FIFA WC

                                         Pakistan's top-line balls to star in FIFA WC                             
On the Brazuca production line, women in headscarves, some with their faces veiled, work briskly.

SIALKOT (AFP) - She has no idea who Lionel Messi is and her home country isn't even playing, but Pakistani mother-of-five Gulshan Bibi can't wait for the World Cup -- because she helped make the balls.

When Brazil and Croatia kick off the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12 there's a good chance they'll be using a ball made by Gulshan and her colleagues at the Forward Sports factory in Pakistan's eastern town of Sialkot.

"I'm really looking forward to the World Cup and inshallah (God willing) we will watch the matches. The balls we make will be used and all the women who work here are very proud," Gulshan told AFP.

Cricket-mad Pakistan might not have much of a football team -- 159th in FIFA's world rankings -- but Sialkot has a long history of manufacturing top-class balls.

Forward Sports has been working with Adidas since 1995 and supplies match balls to some of the world's top football competitions, including the Champions League, the German Bundesliga -- and now the World Cup.

Legend has it that football-making in Sialkot began in the days of British rule, but child labour scandals in the 1990s almost sank the industry.

Now international brands like Adidas work closely with factories and NGOs to enforce stringent checks to prevent any return to the dark days of children stitching balls in dingy backrooms.

At Forward Sports, workers must provide government ID to prove they are over 18.

And while the basic 10,000-rupee ($100) monthly salary might put a $160 FIFA-approved Brazuca ball beyond the reach of the workers, several spoken to by AFP privately said the company looked after them well.

In any case, assembling modern match balls is not simply a matter of sitting down with a needle and thread.