INTERNATIONAL trade union charged Euro `96 organisers yesterday with using balls manufactured by children working in slave conditions in Pakistan.
It is a shame on soccer that its central item is the product of an industry where almost every factory has a punishment room for kids who are hung upside down, starved, caned or lashed when they make a mistake or upset their masters," said Neil Kearney, the general secretary of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation.
The Federation called on football's governing bodies to adopt a code of conduct to ensure that balls manufactured with a stamp of approval from UEFA or FIFA were produced by factories which do not use child labour and observe basic workers' rights.
Pakistan produces around 80 per cent of the world's footballs, mostly in the city of Sialkot, which alone turns out 35 million balls a year.
Kearney said workshops in Sialkot frequently had children as young as six working for less than four pence an hour. Many of them had been sold into effective slavery for as little as £10.
It is up to UEFA and FIFA to get these children out of the workshops and into school," Kearney said.
. A late night sandwich has cost Eintracht Frankfurt striker Ivica Mornar a place in Croatia's 22 man squad for Euro '96. Officials decided he would play no part in next month's tournament after he was found eating in the bar of the squad's hotel in Porec at three o'clock in the morning.
Mornar was expected to be included in the final 22 named by coach Miroslav Blazevic yesterday as cover for Davor Suker and Alen Boksic. His place has gone to Igor Pamic, leading scorer in the Croatian League this season.
A surprise absentee from the 22 was Hajduk Split midfielder Nenad Pralija, widely seen as one of the best players in Croatian domestic football.
The squad, which includes English based defenders Igo Stimac (Derby) and Slaven Bilic (West Ham) is built around talented midfielders Zvonimir Boban and Robert Prosinecki and the striking force of Suker and Boksic.
