Thai soccer ball makers put stamp on World Cup
(iht.com)
Updated: 2006-07-03 11:49


"I watch the World Cup almost every night," Paitoon said. "There are moments when the camera zooms into the ball, and I think, 'Someone here made that ball.'"

Thailand did not qualify for the tournament this year, and many Thais say it will be years before their national team is good enough to advance. So in some ways the ball is the country's contribution to the quadrennial event.

And it is not just a Thai contribution. In a globalized manufacturing world, the ball is almost as international as the World Cup itself.

The synthetic leather that covers the ball is made in South Korea. The thin layer of foam inside each ball is produced in Japan. The ball's "bladder" - the rubber pouch that holds the air - is imported from India. The cotton material for the "carcass" that holds the bladder comes from Vietnam. And the chemicals that coat the ball are from Germany.

Workers make about 1,800 +Teamgeist balls a day at the factory, and the production numbers are kept on what looks like a scoreboard high above the factory floor. The balls are sold to the public for about $150.

Much has been said about the ball, developed by Adidas and Molten, a Japanese company that specializes in sports balls. With 14 panels instead of 32, it is rounder, and it reportedly flies faster and, goalies say, somewhat more erratically than previous balls.

Balls here are continually tested for roundness. And a few times a day a randomly chosen ball is put into a "shooter" machine that checks the durability of the ball by thrusting it against a wall 3,500 times at 70 kilometers, or 40 miles, an hour.

But there are some secrets contained in the factory here that most fans presumably do not know: All balls are not created equal. Even with high-technology equipment and top-grade materials, the balls turned out here vary in weight by as much as 30 grams, or 1 ounce, with the final product weighing anywhere from 420 to 450 grams.

"The top players can feel a difference of five grams," Kitano said. This raises the tantalizing prospect that one of the workers in this factory making about $10 a day could help decide the outcome of a World Cup game by adding a few more stitches here, some extra glue there - enough to alter the trajectory of the ball.

By the most literal definition, this is a sweatshop. The factory is so hot that workers develop beads of perspiration on their upper lips and cheekbones. Managers sweat through their shirts.

"There are still improvements to be made," said Akkaphan Rammanee, an Adidas manager who looks after working conditions.

Adidas has outsourced production of the ball to Molten, and Akkaphan said she was in discussions to reduce the temperature in the factory.

Temperatures outside creep into the 32-degree Celsius, or 90 Fahrenheit, range regularly here. But this has not stopped employees of the factory from playing soccer on a basketball court at lunchtime. They organized a Molten Cup in which teams from different divisions of the factory play each other. Strikingly, however, they do not use the +Teamgeist ball for their matches.

"We make quality balls, so they should be used in important matches," said Wichet Boonma, who works in the packing and inspection part of the factory. But he paused after offering this self-effacing answer and glanced over at the ragged ball the workers use for their matches. "If given the chance, I'd like to play with the World Cup ball," he said.



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