The football World Cup ended less than a month ago, with Spain defeating Argentina 1-0 to become world champions for the second time. Now another World Cup is about to begin—the FIH Hockey World Cup—and this time, Pakistan has the chance to make it matter again for its supporters.
The men’s FIH Hockey World Cup kicks off on August 15 in the Netherlands and Belgium, with 16 teams competing for the top prize in international hockey. Four-time world champions Pakistan are finally back after missing two of the last three editions.
But the question remains: why isn’t the Hockey World Cup celebrated like its football counterpart? Why has the divide between the two sports widened so much?
What makes it particularly frustrating is that hockey was once among the world’s most popular sports. Argentina, for instance, credited Pakistan’s attacking style with shaping their approach when they won their first FIFA World Cup on home soil in 1978. They had watched Pakistan’s forwards dismantle opponents at the Hockey World Cup in Argentina earlier that year, which inspired their attacking philosophy.
That is how influential Pakistan’s hockey team once was. Today, however, hockey is struggling for attention.
Hockey needs to become everyone’s business
The 2026 FIFA World Cup featured 48 teams for the first time, compared with 32 in the previous edition. The Hockey World Cup, meanwhile, remains limited to 16 teams.
Go back to the inaugural Hockey World Cup in 1971, when there were 10 teams. Fifty-five years later, only six additional places have been added.
Football has taken the opposite approach: make the World Cup bigger and help more countries feel that they belong. Hockey officials have traditionally placed greater emphasis on maintaining quality rather than simply increasing quantity.
That approach is understandable, but could hockey’s limited global reach partly explain its limited popularity?
There is a practical reason football has such an advantage. Give a child a ball and a patch of grass, a street, or a playground, and a game can begin. Hockey requires sticks, specialized equipment, and, increasingly, an artificial turf pitch. At the elite level, the infrastructure is even more demanding.
When hockey was played on grass, things were considerably simpler. Schools across Pakistan and India fielded hockey teams, giving children the opportunity to develop their skills. Even after artificial turf transformed the sport, players from both countries adapted quickly. The difference was that India had the resources to replace grass surfaces with astroturf on a much larger scale, whereas Pakistan struggled to make the same transition.
Infrastructure, however, is only part of the problem. A successful sport needs to offer its players a future. In Pakistan, domestic hockey has struggled to provide the financial security that talented young players need. As a result, some never enter the sport, while those who do often look to foreign leagues for better opportunities.
Football may not be a major professional sport in Pakistan, but its structure offers a lesson. A fan can follow international football, domestic competitions, clubs, and national leagues almost every week of the year. Hockey simply does not enjoy that level of constant visibility.
Visibility creates popularity. Popularity attracts television audiences, which in turn attract sponsors. Sponsors create opportunities for players, encouraging more young people to enter the sport.
That cycle has made football immensely powerful. Hockey needs to create its own version of it.
Pakistan has an opportunity
For Pakistan, the 2026 tournament is about more than qualification. It is about reconnecting with a sporting identity that has nearly vanished.
The Greenshirts won the first men’s Hockey World Cup in 1971 and went on to win the tournament three more times—in 1978, 1982, and 1994.
For older Pakistanis, those triumphs remain part of the country’s sporting folklore. For younger generations, they can feel like ancient history. That is the real problem.
Pakistan has not simply lost hockey matches; it has lost hockey from the national conversation. The 2026 World Cup offers an opportunity to bring it back.
Pakistan has been drawn into Pool D with England, India, and Wales—a group that offers plenty of opportunities to attract attention.
Pakistan versus India needs no introduction. Pakistan versus England has a decades-long sporting history. Wales offers an opportunity to introduce the national team to a different audience.
These should not merely be treated as three matches. They should be treated as three opportunities to rebuild interest.
The diaspora can play a major role
With the tournament being held in Europe and jointly hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands, this is an ideal opportunity for Pakistanis living abroad to introduce their children to a sport that was once central to the country’s sporting identity.
The World Cup can become a diaspora event. Pakistani community organizations can host screenings, and restaurants and businesses can sponsor viewing events. Schools and cultural organizations can introduce younger Pakistanis to the country’s hockey history.
Digital media can tell the stories of Pakistan’s great teams and players. Instead of simply telling young Pakistanis that their country “used to be good at hockey,” show them why.
Clips from Pakistan’s glory days are readily available online. Let younger audiences discover Islahuddin, Samiullah, Hasan Sardar, Hanif Khan, Shehbaz Ahmed, Sohail Abbas, and many other players who once drew fans who organized their schedules around watching them play.
Explain how Pakistan won three Olympic gold medals and four World Cups, and how the rivalry with India helped both teams grow internationally.
The goal is to turn nostalgia into engagement.
Hockey doesn’t need to become football
The lesson from the FIFA World Cup is not that hockey needs 48 teams tomorrow. It is that football has made its biggest tournament accessible to the world. Hockey can learn from that without becoming football.
The sport can eventually expand, but first it needs more countries to play seriously, stronger grassroots structures, more pitches, greater television exposure, professional leagues, and better digital storytelling.
Pakistan has an additional responsibility. It must stop treating every World Cup qualification as the end of a crisis and start treating it as the beginning of a long-term revival.
The last time Pakistan appeared in the World Cup, it finished 12th in the 16-team tournament. It then failed to qualify for the next edition.
That is a remarkable decline for a country whose Air Marshal Nur Khan was instrumental in conceiving the Hockey World Cup—long before cricket administrators developed a similar global vision for their sport.
For expatriate Pakistanis, this tournament can be a chance to reconnect with a part of their country’s sporting history that has gradually faded from memory. For younger Pakistanis, it can be an introduction to a sport their parents and grandparents once passionately followed.
The sticks are ready. The World Cup is coming. Now, Pakistan needs to give people a reason to watch.
