Sport balls were the first non-food product which was Fairtrade Certified. The movement toward Fairtrade Certification of sport balls began in 2001, and was a logical progression from the elimination of child labor in the soccer ball industry in Pakistan. During the mid-late 1990’s, the ILO IPEC initiated a program to eradicate child labor in the soccer ball industry. The program involved traders, producers, and civil society, and succeeded in effectively removing child labor from the industry.

As a parallel effort, in 1997 TransFair Italy began a project called "Palloni Eticii", which focused on campaigning around the child labor eradication efforts and marketing balls that were child labor free. This program involved working with one producer (Talon, now Fairtrade Certified).

In 2001, as the child labor eradication program seemed to be successful, and there were learnings from Palloni Eticii, another FLO member Labelling Initiative, Rattvisemarkt in Sweden, also became interested in the project. Rattvisemarkt conducted some preliminary research about the possibility to certify Fairtrade Sport balls (including on standards) in close cooperation with FLO.

FLO finally created Standards for Sportballs in 2002. That year, the first three sports balls producer organisations became Fairtrade Certified in the centre of the world’s football production in Pakistan.