Da Womens Soccer World
March/April 1998
News &Views
Foudy Wins FIFA Fair PIay Award
On her way to the International Women’s Tournament in China, U.S. co-captain
Julie Foudy made a detour to Paris, where she accepted the Fair Play Award
of the Federation of international Football Associations (FIFA), the first
woman to receive the prestigious prize. The Fair Piay Award was given to
Foudy in recognition of her commitment to ending child labor in the manufacture
of soccer balls. Before she was entirely comfortable endorsing their line
of equipment, Foudy traveled to Reebok’s new manufacturing center in the
Sialkot region of Pakistan in January 1997, to see for herself the operations
which were designed to ensure that no children are used to stitch the balls.
“A lot of athletes, including myself, tend not to think
about how the equipment we use in our sport is made,” Foudy said after
her trip. “I strongly felt that in order to speak publicly about the issue
of child labor and soccer ball manufacturing and to fully support Reebok’s
‘no child iabor guarantee’ that I needed to make the trip to Pakistan.
It’s one thing to talk about child labor issues, but to actually be there
and see how the Reebok factory operates is something entirely different.”
Foudy’s high profile concern about child labor in soccer
ball manufacturing emphasized an issue which concerned an increasing number
of parents and coaches in the U.S. A consortium of soccer ball manufacturers
have now handed together to
ensure that balls are labeled so parents will be able to know that
they are buying products which are manufactured without
exploiting chiidren.
