We’re very proud to announce that The Ball for 2010 will be made by Alive & Kicking in South Africa. This amazing project makes cheap, tough, repairable footballs, netballs and volleyballs, using African skills and African leather. Each carries a message about HIV/AIDS and malaria.
The Ball 2010 will be “an African ball made for the poorest African communities – the very embodiment of development through football in Africa.” says James Flecker of Alive & Kicking.
Barack Obama inspecting an Alive & Kicking ball in Kenya
Please visit Alive & Kicking’s donations page where you can donate an ball to a community that will appreciate it more than you can imagine.
Winners of the World Cup can now display a badge as well as stars on the national shirt.
The ‘FIFA World Champions Badge’ on the Italian shirt
In fact, it looks like the Italian FA has incorporated the stars into their badge design — previously the stars would circle the national FA’s badge, with a new one added for each World Cup won.
Four stars on the 2002 Brazil football shirtWhy is this relevant to us? Well, at one point we thought that The Ball could represent the star that gets awarded at the end of the competition. That’s why the 2002 and 2006 films start with The Ball emerging from the heavens, descending to its starting point in Battersea Park like a shooting star coming down to earth. In a sense, the star on the shirt is a memory of that year’s Ball and the games played with it.
