A graduate from the University of Sussex is helping to give exploitation the boot by selling fair trade footballs.

Jamie Lloyd, the director of Fair Deal Trading Partnership, has developed links with a manufacturer in the Sialkot region of Pakistan where 75 per cent of the world's footballs are made.

In the build-up to the 1998 World Cup in France, studies by groups such as Save the Children highlighted that children were involved in the stitching of footballs.

As a result, most major brands have taken steps to ensure children are no longer involved, by moving production out of the villages into larger factory units.

But, because in some Islamic societies women are excluded from working in the same room as men, the effect has been to make some families even poorer.

To get round the problem, the Fair Deal Trading Partnership developed a scheme where football stitching was organised into small work units in villages, with dedicated units for women.

The company pays its workers about two dollars above the industry average, enough to provide for a family and avoid the need for child labour.

It also operates a system of free healthcare and issues micro-credits to help workers escape the industry and develop alternative ways of earning a living.

Jamie, 27, said: "Football production is not going to stop in Pakistan because it is such a huge export business but we don't want people to be doing it all their lives.

"There is no real interest in football in Pakistan so the idea of people handstitching footballs for the whole of their working life is surely a depressing one."

This year the company, based in George Street, Brighton, hopes to import between 50,000 and 60,000 balls into the UK - all carrying the Fairtrade Foundation label.

It sells three different types: The 'Pro', the 'Premier' and the 'Team'.

All are fully compliant with FIFA matchball standards but Jamie reckons it will be a long time before you see Wayne Rooney kicking one about on Match of the Day.

He said: "The big manufacturers still wield a lot of power and the football leagues are tied into huge contract deals with them so I just can't see it happening."

The footballs were the first to bear the Fairtrade Foundation logo and are sold to groups such as Amnesty International, the Christian Football League and Blackwells book shops.

Tuesday, November 8, 2005