Italian soccer has a Ludhiana connection

Italian national flags manufactured by Satgur Impex

For a country that does not have much to boast of in soccer, this sounds astounding. Italian soccer fans in Germany will be seen wearing training vests manufactured by a Ludhiana firm, during World Cup soccer in Germany. The Italian national flags that will flutter will have the same Ludhiana connection.

A city-based knitwear unit, Satgur Impex, has recently manufactured and delivered promotional 110,000 Italian soccer training vests and 22,000 national flags of Italy for the World Cup Soccer 2006, to be held in Germany in June. This order, which cost Rs 50 lakh, was given to them by Soccer International Ltd, Italy in January.

Giving details, the owner of Satgur Impex, Jagwant Singh Sandhu, said an international order was a matter of national pride as the reputation of the country is directly involved.

"So we have to take extra caution for an international order. The upcoming World Cup Soccer is a big international event and myself being a die-hard soccer fan, it gave me immense while this order was being prepared. I feel as if I am a member of the organising committee as these soccer-training vests and national flags will be sold during the event.''

Each soccer-training vest cost Rs 30 and national flag Rs 60. "Materials used for the training vests was purchased from different spinning mills of Ludhiana while the material for the national flag was bought from Gujarat. All the training vests are polyester-based and national flags are made from polyester-based woven cloth. The national flag is 1 meter by 1 and a half meter in specification while the training vests are of 'one size fits all'.''

Jagwant, also running a famous coffee shop named One Happy Bean in the city believes in teamwork. "Our order was approved in the first week of January 2006 and we were to deliver the order by March. So we had very less time for everything. More than 100 labourers worked in three shifts and I worked round-the-clock.''

When asked why China is preferred over India whenever there is any bulk order, he said, "I have seen that the Chinese government helps and support the industrial units there tremendously. But India is always preferred whenever quality is involved. With the changing geo-political scenario, India is more trusted now. If we have to compete with China over bulk orders, our government has to step forward and provide us machinery at fewer costs.''

Jagwant is not new to international orders, as he has already manufactured T-shirts for British Airways, British Petroleum, Marathon, CITGO and many more. These days he is busy with his order of T-shirts for the next World Cup Soccer to be held in South Africa and the order T-shirts for the London Olympics is in the pipeline.