In a bid to make 2008 a record year for sales, Adidas is sponsoring this month’s Uefa Euro 2008 football championships in Austria and Switzerland and the Olympic Games in China in August. Adidas hopes sponsoring the Olympics will help it achieve €1 billion in sales in China by 2010.

But the price of the company’s public exposure this summer looks set to be increased scrutiny of its Asian supply chains as labour rights campaigners hunt for evidence of poor working conditions in factories in China and elsewhere.

A UK newspaper investigation in March found that workers supplying Adidas at factories in Fuzhou, China, were subject to discrimination, wage cheating, inadequate pay and long working hours, while union leaders suffered abuse.

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