Inside Factory Footage Leaked: Official Adidas Kits for Top Clubs Made by Workers Paid Less Than £1 an Hour, BBC Reveals
, by Chris
- Underpaid Factory Workers: A BBC investigation revealed that official football kits for top European clubs, supplied by Adidas, are manufactured in Cambodia by workers earning less than £1 per hour.
- Arduous Working Conditions: Workers endure difficult conditions including high temperatures, strict production targets, verbal reprimands, and can only increase their basic monthly pay of $210-$220 through significant overtime.
- Adidas's Response and Retail Prices: Adidas claims to enforce strict workplace standards, conduct independent audits, and ensure pay meets local minimum wages, even as retail prices for replica shirts have surged to £85 or more.
A new investigation by BBC Sport has revealed that official football shirts for several of Europe's top clubs, including Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Celtic, Aston Villa, and Benfica, are manufactured in Cambodia by workers earning a basic wage of less than £1 per hour. The report traced production to facilities including the Bowker Garment Factory and Trax Apparel, where workers on standard 48-hour work weeks earn basic monthly pay of $210 to $220 (£158 to £166), which translates to approximately 86p per hour.
Workers Paid Around 10 GBP/Day, Shirts Cost 80-120 GBP
Workers interviewed during the investigation described arduous conditions inside the factories, citing indoor temperatures exceeding 35°C, strict daily team targets of hundreds of items, and verbal reprimands when quotas were missed. Some workers are able to lift their earnings to around $300 a month through extensive overtime. The revelations come at a time when football supporters face record retail prices for club merchandise, with standard adult replica shirts now regularly priced at £85 or more, up by over 50% in the last decade, and authentic player-issue shirts topping £1
The salaries comply with local minimum-wage laws, but make it hard to live with
In response, Adidas, which supplies kits for several of the clubs involved but does not own the third-party factories, stated that it enforces strict supplier workplace standards, carries out independent audits, and ensures pay meets or exceeds local statutory minimum wages.