Adidas Accused of Exploiting Indigenous Artisans on Mexico's El Tri Jersey

It was supposed to be a heartwarming story for the World Cup. Instead, it's a corporate nightmare.

Adidas teamed up with Mexican lifestyle brand Someone Somewhere to create a "first ever hand-embroidered World Cup jersey" for El Tri. A celebration of Mexican culture. A tribute to indigenous craftsmanship. A limited run of 2,026 jerseys, each one hand-stitched by women from the Nahua community in Naupan, Puebla.

The jerseys sell for up to $250 a pop.

The women who made them got paid about $1.80 an hour.

And that's just the start of it.

Whistleblower Luz Valdez, a cultural promoter, went public with what she found inside the secretive operation. More than 150 indigenous women from the "Mujeres Unidas Chakalxochitl" collective were recruited to embroider the jerseys. They poured 165,000 hours of labor into the project over 15 months. They used over a million meters of thread.

Their reward? Thirty-six Mexican pesos per hour. That works out to around 180 pesos ($9 USD) for a five-hour shift. And they had to crank out at least two incredibly complex jerseys per shift.

The hand-embroidered edition retails for 3,999 to 4,999 pesos each. The standard third kit goes for 1,599 to 2,499 pesos. Take a wild guess which cut the women never saw.

Oh, and the promised health insurance? Never happened. Someone Somewhere claimed there were no IMSS clinics nearby. Turns out the IMSS Mextla Rural Medical Unit is about 2.5 miles away. Oops.

From Cultural Center to Sweatshop

The operation was run out of Naupan's Casa de Cultura "Amochkali" — a public building that was turned into a secret maquila workshop. The women had to clock in and out using electronic devices. The town's own mayor, Valerio Escorcia Calva, couldn't even get inside. "Confidentiality," they said.

If a jersey had a wrinkle or a loose thread, it was sent back to be redone from scratch. No extra pay for the rework. And if any woman dared to take side work from other brands (where she could earn a decent $24 per jersey), she was fired on the spot.

This might be the ugliest part.

The marketing campaign screamed "traditional Mexican craftsmanship." But the women were taught modern Western stitches — French knots, seed stitch, zigzag, chain stitch — to meet Adidas' quality standards. Their ancestral techniques, known as "hilo contado" and "pepenado," were thrown out the window.

Tatiana Bernaldez, a textile semiotician who has spent 18 years studying Naupan's embroidery traditions, called it "symbolic epistemicide" — the destruction of cultural knowledge for commercial gain.

"They put an eagle that has nothing to do with Naupan," Bernaldez told Proceso. "They used the name of a random community. It's an affront to indigenous cultural rights."

The artisans' names didn't even make it onto the collectible tags. All the credit went to the collective's leaders registered with the tax authorities.

Adidas Has Gone Quiet

Someone Somewhere fired back a letter defending the wages as "above legal minimum." They confirmed the women weren't registered with social security but claimed the workers didn't want to lose their federal welfare benefits. Their excuse for turning the public cultural center into a private workshop? The artisan collective asked for it.

Adidas itself? Radio silence. No official statement. Nothing.

It's a risky move for a brand about to hit the biggest marketing stage on earth. The World Cup starts in weeks. Adidas outfits half the teams in the tournament. If this story snowballs during the games, the PR damage could be staggering.

This isn't Adidas' first rodeo with indigenous culture in Mexico. Last year, the German giant had to apologize for the "Oaxaca Slip-On" sandals — designed by a Mexican-American designer but featuring traditional Zapotec patterns without permission or compensation. Executives actually flew to Villa Hidalgo Yalalag to say sorry in person to the community.

So what did they learn? Apparently not much beyond how to write a better apology letter.

Mexico has been cracking down on cultural appropriation of indigenous designs. Spanish fast-fashion giant Zara got called out for copying Mixtec patterns. The Xcaret theme park was ordered to stop using Maya cultural symbols. But when it comes to Adidas and the World Cup, the Mexican government has been strangely quiet.

The Federal Law for the Protection of Indigenous Cultural Heritage is on the books. But so far, no one has filed a formal complaint. The Culture Ministry says they only step in when the artisans themselves ask for help. And the women of Naupan? They're still waiting to see if their names will ever be attached to the jerseys they made.

For now, the hand-embroidered jerseys are still for sale. Each one tells a story. Just not the one Adidas wanted you to hear.