Soccer Company Calls Foul

by Zarah Patriana

Published December 01, 2008 @ 09:32PM PT

Last week, I told you about the International Labor Rights Forum recent report about major instances of child labor in the soccer ball industry in India. Around the time the report came out, Bryant Gumbel and crew aired a news story entitled "Childhood Lost" on his HBO show "Real Sports wit Bryant Gumbel". The report exposed the horrid conditions taking place in India with the production of these balls through child labor.

Some of the footage involved children stitching soccer balls for the English company Mitre that showed the young ones stitching balls labeled "Child Labor Free". All for the salary of 5 cents per hour. Well, Mitre wasn't about to take this exposé sitting down. It turns out that Mitre is suing the show and HBO for defamation. They don't exactly deny the footage or try to claim that it wasn't them, but rather that "show is defamatory because the kids were sewing balls for other companies, as well". They are really making these claims. In their words:

Despite explicitly stating that Real Sports had found 'at least 10 international brands' of soccer balls being stitched by children, the report falsely, maliciously, and intentionally mentions and targets one and only one brand, Mitre. Mitre Sports International Limited (Mitre), a company which has played a leading role in the international effort to eliminate child labor in the manufacture of soccer balls, does not permit child labor. Mitre obtained and presented HBO proof of the falsity of the program's statements concerning Mitre prior to its first broadcast. Childhood Lost falsely, intentionally and maliciously perpetrates a hoax on Mitre and the millions of viewers who watched the initial and subsequent HBO broadcasts and who have viewed the program on YouTube and other Internet sites.

Um, guys, but it was caught on camera that you were employing children to stitch your soccer balls for next to nothing. I think Scott James of Fair Trade Sports said it best:

This is like getting pulled over for speeding then claiming that "everyone else was speeding too." That's not the point; the point is that you broke the law - duh - and now you have to face the natural consequences.

Scott goes on to share more of his thoughts on the whole situation and also offers some advice:

Mitre (and everyone else involved) would be best served by putting their time, effort, and money into getting their sports ball facilities certified Fair Trade (like ours are) rather than suing HBO. The lawsuit - no matter who wins - will not benefit the sports ball stitchers in India, but having their facilities qualify for Fair Trade certification certainly would.

Pursuing Fair Trade certification would also benefit the Mitre brand; they would be seen as part of the positive solution, rather than the negative current public image of one corporation suing another. They are simply forgetting that this issue at its core is about human beings.

We are seeing a bit of corporate social responsibility coming from Puma with the production of their first Fair Trade soccer balls. Now we're just waiting for these large soccer companies to spend their energy improving their labor standards instead of suing and calling foul on a story that is basically true.

[PhotoCredit: ILRF.  BBA for Photography and Hanh Nguyen for Design]