"In a steamy Thai factory, soccer ball makers put their stamp on the World Cup
By Thomas Fuller International Herald Tribune, Published: July 2, 2006
CHONBURI, Thailand: On the field and on the sidelines, the World Cup is dominated by men. But in the sweltering factory here where the official World Cup soccer balls are cut, stitched and glued, it is a woman's world. Only about a dozen of the 250 workers who assemble the Adidas-brand balls here are men. And Akiyoshi Kitano, the Japanese supervisor of the factory, said it is better that way. When it comes to production goals, women are much better at handling the ball, he said.
"The ladies are more skillful," Kitano said, adding that their fingers are more nimble and their work more precise.
Of all the logistics involved in the World Cup - the ticket sales, the advertising, the security - you could argue that the workers in this factory about two hours southeast of Bangkok have the most important job. The tournament could conceivably proceed without groundskeepers, ticket punchers or marketing executives. But with no ball to kick around, there would not be much of a game.
Perhaps in a small way, then, this makes the employees who churn out what Adidas calls +Teamgeist balls the heroes of the game, albeit meagerly paid ones. They earn about $200 a month including overtime, less than the price of some seats at World Cup matches....
more on balls at http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/02/ ... s/ball.php
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