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HONG KONG, June 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Before World Cup kick-off, the first world champions have already been crowned. TUV Rheinland has purchased 90 fan jerseys for all teams participating in the FIFA World Cup (in both the countries themselves and online) and tested them against the relevant European limit values for textiles. The TUV Rheinland textile oracle pitted all of the jerseys against each other in the group stage and the knockout games to determine the 2014 world champion.
The T-shirts purchased are not official FIFA or DFB (German Football Association) products or T-shirts from the jersey manufacturers. Instead, the children's T-shirts tested came from markets, souvenir shops or the Internet, with an average price of EUR15 per jersey. The 90 fan T-shirts were then tested in TUV Rheinland's textile laboratory in Turkey for toxic substances and quality. The "textile teams" competed against each other based on the draws in the group stage and subsequent games. A textile winner was then chosen in each match. The TUV Rheinland textile oracle used this method for each match right through to the final, with surprising and sometimes alarming results.
Frank Dudley, TUV Rheinland spokesperson: "Originally, we planned the campaign simply as an alternative oracle to predict the results and did not buy any cheap shirts. Nevertheless, the results of the test were alarming. Every third fan jersey is so full of toxic substances that it should not be sold at all -- at least in Europe or the USA -- and only every third T-shirt actually passed all of the tests."
TUV Rheinland has specialist test laboratories around the world for many areas including textile testing. The TUV Rheinland test laboratory in Istanbul tested the fan jerseys for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil based on internationally recognized standards and test criteria and used European limit values as the benchmark for all products.
The jerseys were tested in accordance with the following standards and test criteria:
Overview of the Results
The laboratory tests established that more than 30% of the fan T-shirts exceeded the limit values for the toxic substances tested. 32 shirts exceeded the European limit for phthalates, which are plasticizers primarily used for prints on textiles. Plasticizers are suspected of acting like hormones and are therefore banned from use in textiles. They can easily be replaced with other substances.
Five T-shirts even exceeded the European limit for cadmium. A heavy metal, cadmium can also prove hazardous in higher concentrations and can cause skin reactions, for example. Another product (a fan jersey from Belgium) even overstepped the European threshold for azo dyes. Certain azo dyes are carcinogenic and are therefore banned from use in textiles.
In 25 of the shirts, the quality of workmanship was also inadequate. The T-shirts also presented further problems after washing, with testers pointing out changes in 28 of the products.
Only 30 fan jerseys were free from toxic substances and passed all of the laboratory tests.
Favorites Fall in the Preliminary Round
After the group stage, Mexico, Cameroon, Australia, Chile, Greece, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Switzerland, Honduras, Nigeria, Argentina, Ghana, Korea and Russia all had to pack their bags and watch the rest of the 2014 textile world cup from the sidelines. The TUV Rheinland textile oracle predicted that World Cup favorites Argentina and Germany would also be knocked out before the last sixteen due to breaching the rules on permitted toxic substances.
The final of the first fan T-shirt world cup saw Portugal face off against Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the TUV Rheinland oracle, Bosnia and Herzegovina were the victors with the best jersey.
