Inside the £1-an-hour factories making official football shirts

Workers producing official football shirts for some of the world's biggest clubs are being paid basic wages of less than £1 an hour in Cambodia, a BBC Sport investigation has found.

The investigation traced authentic replica shirts to two factories in Cambodia, where workers described difficult working conditions, low pay and intense production targets.

Images obtained by Sport reporters from Bowker Garment Factory and Trax Apparel show shirts being produced for clubs including Arsenal, Celtic, Liverpool and Real Madrid.

Workers at the factories said they struggled to make ends meet despite working long hours and producing hundreds of items each day.

The investigation found that employees could work on as many as 700 items in a day as part of the production line. Workers also described factory temperatures exceeding 35C, verbal abuse when production targets were not met and concerns about electrical equipment.

The Clean Clothes Campaign, a global workers' rights network, described the findings as a "very grim picture" of conditions faced by garment workers.

The organisation said the issues identified by the investigation were similar to problems experienced by garment workers across Cambodia's wider clothing industry.

Low wages behind expensive shirts

Workers at the two factories typically work six eight-hour shifts a week.

Five payslips examined by Sport reporters showed basic monthly salaries ranging from $210 to $220, equivalent to approximately £158 to £166.

The salaries comply with Cambodia's legal minimum-wage requirements.

Three of the payslips showed total monthly earnings of around $300, or about £226, after overtime and allowances were included. However, those higher earnings involved significant additional hours.

One Bowker worker said the income was difficult to live on after paying for rent, food and utilities.

Another worker at Trax told the reporter that the price of a football shirt could exceed what a worker earned in more than two weeks.

The worker said the shirts represented the labour and sweat of Cambodian workers who made them.

Trax Apparel told Sport reporters that its average monthly employee earnings this year ranged from $305 to $342, equivalent to approximately £230 to £258.

Major clubs and Adidas supply chain

About 3,400 people, most of them women, work at Bowker Garment Factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Another 3,200 employees work at Trax Apparel, around 10 miles away.

The factories carry out much of the shirt-production process, including sewing, ironing and packaging.

Fabric is imported from Thailand and Vietnam, while specialist tailors initially produce samples that other workers use as templates for mass production.

The investigation found shirts being manufactured for major football clubs under Adidas branding.

Adidas does not own either factory, but both are primary suppliers subject to the sportswear company's workplace standards.

Adidas supplies eight of the 20 Premier League clubs.

The company said it had worked to promote fair and safe working conditions throughout its supply chain for more than 25 years.

Adidas said it conducts around 1,200 factory audits each year to evaluate supplier conduct and work with suppliers to address problems and improve conditions.

The company also said average net wages among a sample of its Cambodian suppliers were 34 per cent above the Anker Research Institute's living-wage benchmark.

Adidas added that workers were "usually paid considerably higher than the local minimum wage".

Bowker Garment Factory did not respond to BBC Sport's request for comment.

Why football shirts cost so much

The findings come as football shirt prices have risen substantially over the past decade, prompting some fans to turn to counterfeit shirts because of the cost of official merchandise.

Research published last year estimated that, for a typical £85 football shirt, approximately £8.50 covers fabric, sewing and shipping.

The same analysis estimated that retailers receive £37.45, manufacturers receive £16.25, marketing accounts for £9.50 and VAT represents £13.60.

Industry experts argue that technological improvements and increasingly expensive kit agreements between sportswear companies and elite football clubs have contributed to higher retail prices.

However, the BBC investigation raises questions about how much of the price paid by supporters ultimately reaches the workers who manufacture the shirts.

The factories are thousands of miles from the club shops and online stores where the finished products are eventually sold.

At Bowker, a photograph obtained by reporters shows mannequins displaying Benfica, Aston Villa and Celtic kits beneath an Adidas logo.

The investigation found that workers remain responsible for much of the labour-intensive work involved in turning imported fabric into finished football shirts.

Calls for better conditions

Workers' accounts highlight concerns beyond pay, including excessive heat, production pressure and workplace safety.

The Clean Clothes Campaign said the conditions described in the investigation were representative of challenges facing garment workers more broadly and called attention to the need for stronger protections.

The findings also raise questions about the effectiveness of auditing systems used by major sportswear companies to monitor factories within their supply chains.

Adidas said its auditing programme was part of a broader approach intended to identify problems, work with suppliers and deliver improvements.

The company did not suggest that the wages reported at the two factories were illegal. Instead, it pointed to the difference between statutory minimum wages and living-wage benchmarks and said wages at its Cambodian suppliers were generally above the local minimum.

The investigation illustrates the contrast between the increasingly expensive football shirts sold to supporters and the relatively low basic wages received by many of the workers involved in producing them.

For fans paying premium prices for official merchandise, the findings are likely to intensify debate over whether the football industry's commercial growth is being matched by adequate pay and working conditions throughout its global supply chains.