Follow the Bouncing Ball
Pakistani, Indian or Chinese?
I love soccer and can’t wait to spend hours watching TV during the World Cup in South Africa (June 11 – July 11). So I was drawn to an IndiaRealTime post last week about the fierce international competition between soccer ball makers.
The little town of Sialkot, in eastern Pakistan, was the undisputed world champion of the soccer ball production world. But times have changed and, going into the World Cup, the title of world’s leading soccer ball maker is up for grabs among Pakistan, India and China. For sheer numbers, China wins – running down the field with millions of mass-produced, machine-stitched soccer balls. But the companies of Sialkot show disdain for these cheap Chinese balls. It’s the high quality, hand-stitched balls from India that are worrisome.
The origin of the Indian competition is political, founded back in 1947 when Pakistan and India split. Some of Sialkot’s soccer ball specialists felt more comfortable on the Indian side of the border and moved their operations to Jalandhar and Meerut, in northern India. They are still the core of India’s soccer ball industry, but – after all these years – the Indian and Pakistani industries are still aiming kicks at each other. There are those in Sialkot who claim that the only reason the Meerut ball makers can beat them is on price, and that Meerut’s prices are low only because they use child labor. The Indian manufacturers, backed by the Indian Sports Goods Export Promotion Council, says the Pakistani charge is offsides, of course. Unfortunately for the producers in Meerut, the International Labor Rights Forum, an NGO in Washington, sided with the Pakistanis and red-carded the Indians. Their evidence was enough for the U.S. Department of Labor to put Indian soccer balls on its list of forbidden child labor items. Pakistani balls are OK, says Labor.
While some of the producers in Sialkot are in stoppage time complaining about the Indians, others are running for what they see as an open goal. Forward Group, one of the top Pakistani soccer ball makers, says it has cut costs by automating more of its production without sacrificing the hand-stitching that is so important to quality. Forward has been awarded the contract to produce the mass-market replicas of the official World Cup 2010 soccer ball and expects to sell six million of the round things this year. That’s a 40% increase in sales. As a group, Sialkot still does well against the upstart Indians, making some 30 million soccer balls every year – supplying 40% of the world market.
Now, if only the World Cup didn’t overlap the Tour de France (July 3 – 25). What to watch? Play on!
