Speaking at the event, Eduardo called for an end to child labour, joining ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, Mr. Federico Addiechi, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of the Federation Internationale de Football Association FIFA, Ms Nicole Petignat-Mouidi, the only female referee qualified for male international matches and Mr. Carlos Xavier, a football player from Portugal and creator of a football club targeted at child development.

The WDACL is designed to highlight the ILO's global 'Red Card to child labour' campaign, which, through the partnership with FIFA, has reached millions of people around the~world since its launch in 2002. In his opening address, Juan Somavia declared "the WDACL serves as a catalyst for the growing worldwide movement against child labour, which is finally reaping some results. As the ILO global report on child labour we discussed on 9 June demonstrated we are now seeing the beginning of a decline in the problem with an overall decline of 11 percent."

The shared vision of World Scouting and ILO in pursuing social justice and peace and the empowerment of young people in bringing forward the social dimensions of globalisation are at the core of the collaboration between the two NGOs, which was formalised with the signing of a MoU in December 2004. "It is simply unacceptable that in today's world there are still more than 200 million children working, and 8.4 million trapped in slavery, but our experience shows that we can contribute to change this situation" reaffirmed Eduardo.

After the ceremony, girl football teams from the International School of Geneva and the Signal de Bernex Football club "kicked the ball" against child labour in order to show that children should be given the time to study and play, and that child labour should get the "Red Card".