England’s £160 World Cup kit is made by workers on 21p an hour
ENGLAND’S World Cup football kit is being made in a factory in Bangladesh where workers are paid as little as 21p an hour, an investigation by The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The official shirt and shorts, part of the most expensive England kit ever, are made at a factory inside a governmentcontrolled restricted zone where employees are paid as little as £1.68 a day and live “hand to mouth”.
The clothing, identical to the strip worn by the players during matches, is available to fans to buy in the runup to this year’s tournament in Russia for as much as £160. The “sweat shop” disclosure will raise concerns about whether the Football Association has carried out adequate checks on where the garments are being made and could be embarrassing for the England team. Simon Hart MP, a Conservative member of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, called on the FA to launch an investigation.
He said: “The FA has an obligation to look into the way in which this deal was struck and satisfy itself and the players and the fans that it is acting … in the best interests of the people in Bangladesh, who are making this product for them.”
A second MP, Jo Stevens, also a member of the committee, said: “The FA have a duty to oversee every aspect of England’s engagement with the World Cup, including the kit, which we should be proud of as a country. It will be hard to be proud if it turns out it was made on the back of people being exploited in the workplace.”
The Clean Clothes Campaign, which strives to improve conditions in the global garment industry, said: “With the minimum monthly wage set at 5,300 BDT (£47), garment workers in Bangladesh are some of the most poorly paid in the global garment industry.
“Their wages do not even cover basic needs, much less enable them and their families to have decent lives.”
The group said that a living wage in Bangladesh would amount to 37,661 BDT (£335) a month. This equates to £1.62 per hour. It added: “There is a stark contrast between the deprivation where these kits come from and the World Cup spectacle where they get used. The kits directly connect the fans who wear them and the women – who represent eight in 10 garment-workers – who made them. An easy way for Nike to profit is making the fans pay a lot for the kits while the workers are paid starvation wages. Fans should … demand that Nike changes this exploitative business model.”
The Telegraph revealed earlier this year that England’s new “replica” and “match” kits, made by Nike as part of its lucrative long-term partnership with the Football Association, would be the most expensive ever – costing nearly £110 and £160, respectively.
In 2016, the FA announced a 12-year contract extension with Nike, effective from August this year, worth in excess of £400million. The kit is made in a factory inside a government-controlled Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Savar, near Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. The socks are made in Bulgaria.
In recent years, retailers have been criticised for outsourcing clothing production to cities in Bangladesh. In 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapsed, killing 1,134 workers and injuring more than 2,000. It was used by several global brands and the disaster elicited responses from around the world.
Many firms signed up to new safety regulations. However, Nike is not a signatory and it is unclear whether it is to join other firms who have committed to a new “accord” that will take over
‘There is a stark contrast between the deprivation where these kits come from and the World Cup spectacle’
‘Their wages do not even cover basic needs, much less enable them and their families to have decent lives’
from the current declaration. When a reporter for The Telegraph approached people working at the factory making the England kit, some staff said they were unwilling to speak, fearing they would lose their jobs if seen “talking with strangers”.
Our reporter was asked to leave by security personnel, but later was able to interview factory employees, some of whom work up to 60 hours a week.
One woman said she worked eight hours a day, six days a week and was paid a basic monthly salary of 5,600 BDT (£49.84). Her hourly wage of 24p rises to 28p when a monthly transportation allowance and attendance bonus of 1,000 BDT (£8.90) is added on.
A sewing assistant, who shares a room with four other people, said he was living “hand to mouth”. He earns a basic monthly salary of 4,800 BDT (£42.72), £1.68 a day or 21p an hour, which combined with a transport allowance and attendance bonus means he takes home 5,836 BDT (£51.94).
A second man, who operates a sewing machine, earns 7,028 (BDT) (£62.55) per month, 30p per hour, rising to 8,228 BDT (£73.23) with allowances. He said: “I sent my wife to my village because I can’t afford the expenditure here. With that amount, it’s hard to survive. Life is tough day by day.”
A third man, who has been working at the factory for three years as a sewing operator, earns a monthly salary of 7,456 BDT (£66.36) with allowances. He said: “Sometimes we have to borrow money from our friends … because what we get paid for a month we couldn’t manage our expenses.”
A spokesman for Nike said that it conducted its business “ethically and sustainably” and that its code of conduct was “aligned with International Labour Organisation standards”.
The company said its code required “suppliers to pay their employees at least the local minimum wage or prevailing wage” and ensure that “the regular work week may not exceed 48 hours and the sum of regular and overtime hours in a week may not exceed 60 hours”.
The FA said that as well as manufacturing England kits, “Nike work [s] with many Premier League, European and international teams” and that it had received “assurances that all England products are manufactured in accordance with the law” and relevant codes of conduct.