The Beautiful Game is only beautiful if there’s fair play all round.
L-R Jack Jones age 7, Samuel Johnson age 3 Lily Jones age 4, and Oliver Johnson age 7, celebrate Welsh Euro success with a fair trade football!
SUSTAINABLE WALES Youngest Volunteers celebrate Wales’s Euro success by kicking around a fair-trade football by Bala Sport.
Football is the world’s most popular game, it unites people around the world. Yet almost half of the world’s footballs are hand-stitched in Sialkot, Pakistan.
Around 40,000 people work in Sialkot’s football making industry, producing tens of millions of footballs annually for multinational companies such as Adidas – providers of the Euro 2016’s official footballs.
Whilst making footballs drives the economy of Sialkot, the industry has a history of poor working conditions and low pay.
Pakistan’s football makers are forgotten across the supply chain, living in poverty.
70% of the world’s footballs are made in Sialkot. Annually 40 million balls produced, with 60 million in a world cup year.
In a sport where top players earn millions annually, there is a responsibility to protect workers receiving low pay.
Bala Sport is the UK's number one source for Fairtrade certified footballs.
Bala football at SUSSED, Porthcawl
Fairtrade guarantees that workers are paid a fair wage, benefit from fair working conditions. A Fairtrade premium is used for projects that include free healthcare.
One of Bala’s fairtrade footballs was kicked about by Lily, Jack, Oliver and Samuel, in expectation of a Wales Euro semifinal win. Let’s all help bounce fair footballs into the mainstream.
Find out more about the production of footballs: "Globalization in Pakistan: The Football Stitchers of Sialkot" an in depth article about the issues in this article in Der Spiegel (in English)
http://www.balasport.co.uk/euro-2016/ 30% off until 10th July 2016