Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Alexey Dedov said his country will be using footballs manufactured in the Pakistani city of Sialkot for the 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament scheduled to be held in Russia this summer, Express Tribune reported on Sunday.

“Pakistan is one of the most renowned countries in the world in the manufacture of sport equipment,” Dedov was quoted as saying.

“We want to enhance our cooperation with Pakistan to other sectors as well,” he added.

The city of Sialkot is well known for producing sporting goods. Footballs manufactured in the country have also been a part of the footballing extravaganza since a long time.

Located on the outskirts of northeastern Sialkot city, workers at the sports factory, which is contracted to global sports brand Adidas, are working extra hours to ensure on-time delivery of the footballs.

According to the company’s chairman, Khawaja Masood: "This is an honor for us, that we are going to provide footballs for the World Cup once again. We are very excited to meet this challenge."

Due to restrictions from Adidas, Khawaja could not reveal how many footballs the company is going to supply for the World Cup, he did say his company produced a total of 700,000 footballs a month.