Think the Earth

About 70% of footballs sold around the world are hand sewn in Sialkot, Pakistan, and in FIFA World Cup years approximately 60 million footballs are produced. Children's involvement in the hand sewing of these footballs has been a problem for over a decade.

In light of this situation, FIFA obliged its licensees in 1996 to ensure that no child labor is used in the manufacturing processes, and launched the "Elimination of Child Labour in the Soccer Ball Industry in Sialkot" project together with ILO, UNICEF, and the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1997. Although the situation has significantly improved, child labor has not been eradicated, and in reality, there has been an outflow of children to other industries, and FIFA has yet to adopt fair trade standards that require even greater consideration for the laborers.

Although TransFair, a third-party certifier of fair trade products, asked FIFA to adopt fair trade footballs before the 2006 FIFA World Cup held in Germany, this did not come to fruition. According to TransFair, the official footballs for the FIFA World Cup are manufactured by adidas, a very large corporation, so it's very difficult to get the issue of fair trade footballs placed on the agenda.

What seems to be also true is that fair trade balls are not up to speed with the high technological standards FIFA requires. The official balls in 2006 were seamless and machine made, while the official balls for 2010 are hand sewn and commands state-of-the-art technology.

Fair trade balls are becoming more widespread in schools and sports clubs in Germany, so I hope that they will become more commonplace in the future. Perhaps the day when we can watch the world's top athletes play with fair trade footballs on the FIFA World Cup stage is not so far off in the future*.

*It has already been announced that adidas will be supplying the official balls for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.