- Title: SOUTH AFRICA: FOOTBALL / SOCCER - Controversy over World Cup mascot production
- Date: 14th March 2010
- Summary: CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (MARCH 12, 2010) (REUTERS) 2010 FIFA SOCCER WORLD CUP OFFICIAL MASCOT, ZAKUMI ON DISPLAY CLOSE UP OF ZAKUMI SOFT TOY MASCOT PRICE LABEL ZAKUMI LABEL ON TOY SIGN SAYING "FIFA OFFICIAL LICENSED PRODUCT"
- Embargoed: 29th March 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: South Africa
- Country: South Africa
- Topics: Sports
- Reuters ID: LVA8RBUXWX9CEM0TBXYSF608WYHB
- Story Text: Soccer's governing body FIFA halted manufacturing of the 2010 FIFA World Cup mascot Zakumi merchandise after it was found that employers worked in sweatshop conditions. Media reports said that the Global Brands Group (GBG), licensee for 2010 World Cup merchandise, had withdrawn its contract from Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products (SFPPC).
GBG said an audit of the company found that it failed to meet the standards required of a supplier by allegedly employing under-age workers in poor conditions and paying minimal wages. Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products has denied the allegations of any wrong doing on its part.
The largest union in the country, the Congress of the South African Trade Unions (COSATU), had strongly criticised the move to contract a Chinese company in the first place to manufacture a South African product. Patrick Craven, Secretary General of Cosatu said that South Africans had lost out on an employment opportunity and was also angry that an African National Congress (ANC) member of parliament had allegedly been involved in the deal.
"The World Cup should be an opportunity to create jobs and improve the lives of South Africans, given that we are hosting it," he said. "So we had a policy from the very early stages that any work that can be done in South Africa should be done in South Africa and here we have an example of a very simple straightforward bit of manufacturing which surely could have been done in South Africa which was outsourced to a Chinese firm and what particularly shocked us, it wasn't FIFA's company Global Brands that outsourced it. They negotiated a deal with a South African company owned incredibly by an ANC member of parliament and it was that company then outsourced China it and we only picked it up as a result of fortunate story in a British newspaper which sent a team to look at this factory and saw that the workers were getting paid the equivalent of 23 Rands (3.10 USD) an hour, they were working very, very long hours which may not be untypical of China but it is certainly unacceptable to our standards. FIFA did undertake to investigate and to their credit their company Global Brands ordered the factory to stop because they too were concerned about the working conditions."
Craven also said that COSATU was investigating whether there were contracts for other World Cup related items that were awarded to ANC officials.
The outsourcing of the manufacturing of the mascot was met with disapproval from South African fans.
"They should make ones from South Africa, not from China. We should have our own label," said Maureen July, a soccer fan in Cape Town. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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