Football

With the global spotlight on South Africa and the 2010 World Cup, CWS has gathered some resources on football's links - both good and bad - with poverty and injustice.

Healing lives

In South Sudan, CWS has provided footballs as part of a project to help children cope with the trauma of war and build new skills. Read the article from our @world magazine

Child labour

In the 1990s the scandal of children stitching soccer balls for the world’s markets was highlighted internationally. FIFA joined the ILO in a major project to eliminate child labour in the ball making industry in Sialkot, Pakistan. Although an independent monitoring body continues to work with most of the football-stitching companies in Sialkot to ensure that children are not involved in this activity, questions remain about those companies not sighning up and the industry elsewhere. Under what conditions was your football produced? Find out more about the Global March world cup campaign against child labour.

The business of Football

CWS’s partner in the UK, Christian Aid, a fellow member of ACT Alliance has teamed up with football supporter groups to highlight the damage caused by the secrecy offered by tax havens – and demand that the rules be changed. Read their Blowing the Whistle: Time’s Up for Financial Secrecy report which reveals how the same tax-haven secrecy that allows football club owners to hide their business practices – and even their identities – is also facilitating massive tax dodging in developing countries. And while such practices are threatening to ruin the beautiful game, for people in the world’s poorest countries they are a matter of life and death. Visit www.christianaid.org.uk