June 29, 2006

 As football fever sweeps the high street, L.S. blows the whistle on replica kits which miss Fairtrade's goals

With the World Cup fever in full swing, even the most rational of consumers can find themselves considering inflatable goalposts and football shaped barbecues. However no matter how intense the passion for the game is, the soccer-themed merchandise has the briefest of lifespans. Come the end of the summer and thousands of replica shirts will inevitably end up in landfill.

Ah, the replica shirt –– a heady mix of national pride, nylon and organotins, a group of chemicals shown to have endocrine disrupting effects on mice and another synthetic chemical to add to the toxic brew.

And when it comes to murky supply lines and substandard working conditions, sports merchandise is in a league apart. At least one high-street retailer promises it will turn around thousands of World Cup T-shirts with the scores of England matches just a few hours after the game. Inevitably, this means more pressure on those at the bottom of the pile –– the workers behind behemoth sports brands.

In fact, the bulk of ‘serious’ World Cup merchandise comes from Sialkot, which is now home to 2,300 subcontractors for major brands and their worker bees –– thousands of poorly paid staff.

Already this year, stories have appeared linking child labour to replica shirts, but, in fact, that is now uncommon. Factories in Sialkot are monitored by the independent Monitoring Association for Child Labour to check whether they are employing children in violation of agreements with the International Labour Organisation.

In effect, this wing of the global sports apparel business no longer has the ignominious title of being the world’s biggest employer of children (according to a recent report by the UN, this now goes to the fishing industry).

But while the clampdown on child workers is good news, it shouldn’t eclipse the fact that workers are still paid poorly and subjected to harsh conditions.

James Lloyd, co-founder of Fair Deal Trading, has long been troubled by the near annexation of Sialkot by sports brands. As an alternative, Fair Deal runs a small operation in the town that is ‘Fairtrade’ certified and offers its workers an equitable proportion of profits. You won’t find any ‘Ingerlund’-type shirts (too jingoistic for Fairtrade football fans, apparently), but you will find footballs, team kits and the first certified Fairtrade trainer (even the rubber for the soles is from a sustainable Sri Lankan forest). Sadly, Fair Deal balls aren’t being used for the World Cup. Despite being Fifa standard, they don’t have the fiscal lure of Umbro, Nike or Adidas.

Counter-intuitively, Lloyd wants to enable Fair Deal’s Sialkot workers to leave football altogether, helping them to get microcredit ––– small loans for self-employment projects that generate income ––– in order to start up more equitable businesses not dependent on a fickle export market. Football finally has an ethical goal. — Dawn / Observer Service

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