Amazon Quiz: This famous sports equipment manufacturer was founded in which country?
Spain
Portugal
USA
UK
Answer: UK
Football is the world’s most popular sport. In 2006, FIFA reported that there were 265 million players registered with one of its member associations, and this does not include the numerous players who enjoy a kick around in the park on a regular basis. Every year, around 40 million footballs are sold worldwide, making the football industry a multibillion-dollar industry. Football technology has advanced greatly in recent years, and this blog post investigates the manufacturing procedures necessary to create one of those 40 million balls.
Modern football was made feasible by Charles Goodyear’s development of vulcanised rubber in the 1800s. Rubber becomes elastic and robust after vulcanisation, allowing it to be employed as the inflatable bladder in the centre of a football. The inflated bladder significantly improved the ball’s bounce.
With the arrival of synthetic leather in the 1960s, manufacturers were able to better regulate the panel construction of balls. The 32 panel ball, which was built on a truncated icosahedron and consisted of 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons, was the most prevalent structure.
The mathematically ordered shape resulted in a ball that was rounder than ever before and consistently round, free of the bulges and deformities that afflicted early footballs. The balls are made of synthetic panels and a bladder made of latex or butyl. Each panel is die cut (using an extremely accurate metal tool) from a sheet of cloth, and holes are pre-punched into each one to make stitching easier.
The production of synthetic balls is time-consuming and labor-intensive. An expert stitcher can stitch a ball together in around 3 hours, with the final seam taking up to 15 minutes.
The way the panels are connected together on ‘thermally bonded’ footballs differs from stitched counterparts. The panels are all positioned inside a mould, with glue added to the borders of each panel. The mould is then heated and pressured, bonding all of the panels together to form a sphere. This method requires far less effort than sewing the panels together. In the 2004 European Championship, the first thermally bonded football was used.
Many more alterations have occurred as a direct result of thermal bonding since then. Because straight edges (to stitch along) are no longer required, far more exotic curved panels may be utilised, allowing the number of panels used to produce a ball to be drastically decreased (the Jabulani — used in the 2010 World Cup – has only 8 panels). Surface texture has been introduced to the panel surface of the most recent ball designs in an attempt to increase the ball’s aerodynamic performance. This is the result of a great deal of discussion about the behaviour of the most recent world cup balls.
The addition of a fabric carcass to the modern ball is a further evolution. This acts as a transitional layer between the panels and the bladder. The goal is to increase the uniformity of the ball’s behaviour during impact.
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