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Fair Trade soccer balls

Fair play is best done with a Fair Trade soccer ball !

May be you already know that about two thirds of all footballs in the world are made in Sialkot, in Northern Pakistan, a city of more than 3 million inhabitants dedicated to this industry. May be also that every now and then you heard about complaints from human rights groups about the working conditions of people who crafted these items, that included bonded and child labor.

a Respect® Fair Trade ball

This situation started to change back in 1997, when some large sports transnationals, pressed by public organizations, signed the Atlanta agreement. It may even be on its way to dissapear as there are now factories who follow the Fair Trade criteria.

To facilitate this process, the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) has issued a product standard, specifying the social and economic goals to be applied, both to the manufacturing company and to subcontractors, be they permanent or by-piece workers, covering the whole value chain of the Fairtrade footballs. Transparency to workers and traceability of the products are monitored and, of course, a decent wage to adults so as to avoid the need of child labor.

Talon Sports is one of the manufacturers of Fair Trade balls in Sialkot; they also make other sports items and have earned several other third-party certifications.

If you are interested in buying them, there is a number of stores which offer them. Fair Trade Sports is one of them, they sell lots of sports gear; besides Fair Trade soccer balls, they also trade rugby, volley balls and t-shirts.

Even more, the Genesis Football Club, in the U.K., regularly uses Fair Trade stuff from 2005; they have tried to get certified as a "Fair Trade Football club" but that kind of thing doesn't exist yet.