I agree. As a brazilian I grew up playing soccer with anything available, and the joy to have a proper ball for a kid is amazing. Also there is a much better chance for a kid to evolve his skills and maybe be a professional player if he have a decent ball to learn the game.

I agree. While I don't live in Rwanda, I have been there a couple times and played soccer both with college students and young children. In all instances, we played with the best ball available.

It's about as far to the other extreme as possible, but when I worked at Google and we'd play soccer after work, there were usually a couple balls available and we always played with the best one we could. Better balls feel better against your feet, do what you're expecting them to do, and increase your enjoyment of the game.

If you're a kid anywhere, and you have a choice between a ball that bounces well and has a sweet spot that lets it leap off your foot and doesn't hurt or make you bleed when you get smacked in the face with it, you.will.prefer.that.ball.every.single.time.

And this ball probably isn't for) those people. Sort of how you can tell when a basketball or a football is not regulation, or one of those self-inflating ones. It's just not the same and won't satisfy a player who wants a "proper" ball (get them a regulation ball)

Obviously the ball isn't the same as a regulation ball, but the point is that the game is not being played on pristine World Cup pitches, but rather in dirt lots, streets, on cement, etc... So rather than sending over inflatable balls that are essentially unusable and thrown away after only a few uses, why not offer something more durable that is very similar.

Would you rather have a ball made out of trash that falls apart when you kick it, a "proper" ball that gets torn to shreds, or this "not regulation" ball that can withstand any abuse you throw at it?

This seems like a no-brainer to me. These kids don't need a regulation ball, and they deserve better than trash.