What Does It Take To Get a Football FIFA Approved? How do you get a football to a quality worthy of the FIFA Approved badge. There are 3 levels of footballs that can achieve a badge of quality, issued by FIFA
- FIFA Approved
- FIFA Inspected
- IMS (International Matchball Standard)
On the 1st January 2016 FIFA issued new guidelines on the rules regarding FIFA accredited footballs. This including the launch of newly designed badges. Over a number of years the badge of quality has been watered down somewhat, as factories that produced a FIFA quality ball for a brand, could then offer this ball to many other brands with different graphics. With the new guidance FIFA will issue the badge to the brand, meaning the badge can not be used by the factory to supplier other companies. For example, If we had a ball that, after testing, met the FIFA Approved quality, we could go to a factory in the sub-continent and get this produced. They could then offer this quality of balls to any other retailer in the world and still use the FIFA badge. This has now been addressed by FIFA's new guidance. Our quality stamp would now only apply to our ball and the factory could be sued by ourselves and FIFA for infringement of the Quality Programme. To get a ball approved there is a 7 point process and each test must be passed to meet the criteria specified by each standard. We hope this will improve the quality of balls available and reduce the amount of FIFA Approved balls available on the market. For more information on the testing procedure and the balls available take a look at this article
How Do Footballs Become FIFA Approved? Mitre have launched a new HYPERSEAM design to their balls this year and many of these are FIFA Quality Approved including the
Mitre Delta Max Pro Football
