Report: Play Fair At The Olympics

In August 2004 the world’s athletes will gather in Athens for the Summer Olympic Games. Global sportswear firms will spend vast sums of money to associate their products with the Olympian ideal. Images of Olympic events, complete with corporate branding, will be televised to a global audience. The expansion of international trade in sportswear goods under the auspices of corporate giants such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Fila, ASICS, Mizuno, Lotto, Kappa, and Umbro has drawn millions of people, mainly women, into employment. From China and Indonesia to Turkey and Bulgaria, they work long hours for low wages in arduous conditions, often without the most basic employment protection. The rights to join and form trade unions and to engage in collective bargaining are systematically violated.

This report asks fundamental questions about the global sportswear industry – questions that go to the heart of debates on poverty, workers’ rights, trade, and globalisation. ‘Olympism’, in the words of the Olympic Charter, ‘seeks to create a way of life based on … respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.’ This report shows that the business practices of major sportswear companies violate both the spirit and the letter of the Charter. Yet the Olympics movement, particularly the International Olympics Committee, has been remarkably silent in the face of these contraventions.

During this Olympic year when such a high value is put on fair play, we ask you to join workers and consumers world wide who are calling for change across the whole of the sportswear industry.