Stab it, squash it, and treat it as roughly as you like--the One World Futbol still keeps its shape and won't deflate.

 

Its inventor has produced the cheap "indestructive ball" for children in developing countries to play the beautiful game on stony ground or concrete in refugee camps and war zones.

It's a common sight around the world: children playing football.

 

But these Johannesburg children play the game with an unusual ball.

 

The One World Futbol is virtually indestructible.

 

Inventor Tim Jahnigen says that producing the ball has been the culmination of a dream which began after he saw a documentary about Darfur refugees playing a makeshift soccer game with their ratty ball of trash and twine.

 

"It made me sad to think that you guys would have a ball that you couldn't fix. And then you have either no ball or you had to make something else to play with."

Jahnigen envisioned a durable ball that would survive anywhere.

 

On a dusty and uneven soccer pitch in a town about 30 miles outside Johannesburg, he finally got to see his One World Futbal in action.

 

"It's the fulfilment of a dream to bring the ball to an environment like this, and have it be used the way it was meant for”

 

Dozens of children watched in awe as Jahnigen proved the durability of the One World Futbol by stabbing it with a knife, then bouncing it on the ground.

The ball behaved as if it was brand new.

 

As one young soccer player in South Africa discovered, if you give the ball a good squeeze, you can hear air leaving it, only to see it inflate itself again.

 

At the World Cup, the official ball, Jabulani, has been at the centre of a fierce debate about its design and suitability for playing fast paced international games.

 

Jahnigen stresses his ball is very different, but no less technically advances.

 

"The comparison between the One World Futbol and the Jabula ni ball is that they're both round and they both are used for soccer. But Jabulani is a technical marvel, it's a breakthrough, it has all kinds of wonderful aspects. But so is ours. Ours is not meant to compete with that at that level. This is a more practical solution, and yet it's a technical marvel in and of itself."

 

The One World Futbol project, backed financially by music star Sting who is a friend of Jahnigens, formally went on sale this week in South Africa, just in time for the closing days of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

 

The distinctive blue ball sells for less than 40 US dollars each, and that includes the purchase of a second ball to be donated through the "Buy One, Give One" humanitarian model.