FIFA yesterday defended its record in limiting child labour in the manufacture of soccer balls and charged other industries with doing far less to address the problem.

"The number of children involved in the production of soccer balls is a tiny percentage of the children misused in this way in industry as a whole," spokesman Keith Cooper said, citing furniture, carpet and surgical instrument manufacturers.

"To my knowledge those other sectors of industry have not done anything remotely to compare with what we have done."

Cooper said FIFA had taken action within months after first being alerted in 1996 to the problem of children stitching leather soccer balls in Pakistan, the main ball manufacturing centre for many Western-owned sports goods companies.