ABSTRACT
The fundamental equipment requirement for the game of soccer is the ball. With over 200 million active players worldwide (Stamm and Lamprecht, 2001), it is understandable that sales of balls are estimated at 40 million annually. These balls vary in their design and construction to suit the entire spectrum of customer requirements. At the top of the range, contemporary soccer balls used in professional match play are constructed from a range of modern rubber and polymer materials using a variety of innovative manufacturing processes. The aim of such technological advances is to produce balls that are more consistent in their physical dimensions and properties as well as in their behaviour during play.
