A NELSON solicitor and Euro-MP today blasted sport manufacturers ahead of the World Cup for exploiting workers.

As millions of fans from nations across the globe wear their country's shirts, Sajjad Karim said the major sporting brands who produce the shirts were making their staff work in squalid conditions.

Mr Karim, Liberal Democrat spokesman on human rights, said major companies were willing to fork out millions in sponsorship to top teams and players, but were exploiting' workers in Asia.

He said: "The World Cup is supposed to be a showcase for fairness and human achievement.

"Workers in the developing world have a right to benefit from those ideals when it is their labour and sacrifices which allow football to be played, by making the kits and equipment.

"The sportswear industry is violating the spirit of the game by exploiting and abusing workers' rights."

Mr Karim hit out as Oxfam published a report 'Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia'.

It found that workers in factories, many of them women from poor areas, were forced to work long overtime, sometimes unpaid, and given wages too low to live on.

In response to previous claims of exploitation, major firms agreed to set up a code of practice with its suppliers, but Mr Karim said more needed to be done.

He added: "Nike can afford to give the Brazilian national team 13million euros a year and Adidas pays a single player, Zidane, 1.5million euros a year.

"Meanwhile the Asian workers who make their sports gear are paid as little as 47 cents an hour.

"This is outrageous. The fat-cat sports companies must share the fruits of their labour with the labourers."

Representing the sportswear industry, Jane Montgomery, spokes-woman for the Federations of Sports and Play Associations, said the companies, who would look at the findings of the study, were striving to improve conditions and were pushing for factory owners to raise standards.

She added: "The solutions to these problems lie not with us but remain largely the domain of governments and civil society.

"We are prepared to work locally and globally within our spheres of influence to make a difference."