Children dribble footballs across the narrow alleys of Pakistan’s impoverished Lyari neighborhood, with only days left for the FIFA World Cup 2026 to begin.
The FIFA World Cup will kick off on Thursday, June 11, with co-hosts Mexico playing against South Africa. All men’s football World Cup editions between 1930, the inaugural tournament, and the last one in 2022, were held in a single host nation except for the 2002 tournament when Japan and South Korea co-hosted it.
This year marks the first time a FIFA World Cup – men’s or women’s – will be played across three countries: the US, Mexico and Canada. But in Karachi’s Lyari, an impoverished area that has made headlines in the past for gang wars and drug trafficking, FIFA fever is quite high.This is in our blood.
“There is something called addiction,” Sameer Baloch, a student and resident of Lyari, told AFP.
“People get addicted to drugs. “But for us, football is addiction.”
Lyari is also known for producing renowned Pakistani boxers and footballers, who have featured in both local and international tournaments over the past couple of years.
Mir Duraj Khan, another Lyari resident, pointed to flags of participating nations painted across the neighborhood’s walls.
“The flags of all 48 countries participating in the FIFA World Cup have been painted all over our area,” Khan said. “We are also putting up panaflexes. People are installing them on their own.”
Mohammad Hamza, another football fan, said the area’s walls reflected the hype that the upcoming World Cup had generated in Lyari.
“Just like with every World Cup, the frenzy for this World Cup is increasing,” he said. “There will be screenings at many places. All these things will definitely happen.”