The whistle of the Clásico comes from Canada

This Sunday’s classic between Real Madrid and Barcelona’sand will beep with a Fox 40. Juan Martinez Munuera Use this famous Canadian whistle, the product of a family business that makes 15,000 a day. In Spain it sells 170,000 a year, in sports, security and first aid. its inventor, Ron Foxcroft tells EFE how he created it in the 70s.

“I find it very exciting every time the World Cup is on television and I see the referees with my whistle or when they use it at the Olympic Games because I was a referee at the Montreal Summer Games in 1976,” he explains to EFE. Ron Foxcroft, the father of the whistle that is sold in 140 countries around the world at an average price of 8 dollars per unit and that in recent decades has become one of the most popular for referees of all kinds of competitions such as the World Cup Soccer or the NBA.

The company from Alicante ‘Made for Sport’ (MFS) is the importer in Spain of Fox 40 whistles and distributes some 30,000 units each year for the football segment, including those used by First Division referees, but they supply all sports as well as other activities, such as security and first aid, with up to 170,000 units supplied every twelve months.

MSF Purchasing Manager, Ruben Perezhas told EFE that many of the professional league referees ask to “personalize” their whistle by including their name, surname, license number or even their nickname, which is done with a laser on both sides of the object. on an area of ​​1 square centimeter.

These highly appreciated whistles because their 115 decibels do not fail in the rain. They cost 5.99 euros (the classic one) and 9.19 euros for those with a silicone mouthpiece, chosen to prevent teeth from being marked and have a more comfortable grip.

In the seventies, Foxcroft He was a budding businessman with a growing family and owner of a trucking company in the Canadian town of Hamilton, about 70 kilometers southwest of Toronto.

But Foxcroft, who still works every day at 76, was also an athlete who was sidelined from football by injury and who channeled his passion into basketball officiating.

“We had little money. I had invested everything in my transportation company. And to pay for food, he umpired in the NCAA college basketball competition. I got to referee the first game played by Michael Jordan (at that time he was known as Mike Jordan) with North Carolina in 1981”, explains the businessman proudly.

By then, Foxcroft had already had his pluses and minuses with the traditional whistles that use a ball, often made of cork, to generate their characteristic sound.

Perhaps the worst moment was during the men’s basketball final at the Montreal Games. Foxcroft had to endure the wrath of the nearly 18,000 spectators watching the match when a Yugoslav player’s elbow to a United States player went unpunished.

And not because Foxcroft didn’t see it or didn’t indicate it. But when he went to whistle the foul, the ball got stuck and the whistle made no sound.

Years later, in 1984, during a pre-Olympic tournament in Sao Paulo (Brazil), the same thing happened to him before 15,000 spectators.

“I told myself enough is enough. Someone has to design a whistle that doesn’t fail. And when I got back to Canada I hired a designer and industrial engineer, Chuck Shepherd, a genius who recently passed away. I took out a $150,000 loan and for three and a half years we worked together. We hired another engineer, a Ph.D. sound scientist, and a music teacher,” recalls Foxcroft.

“And after three and a half years, we finally had two prototypes of what is now the Fox 40 Classic,” he added.

Now the problem was to sell it. And for two months, he literally didn’t sell a dick.

Until in 1987 he was appointed as a referee for the Pan American Games that were held that year in the US city of Indianapolis.

Foxcroft took his two prototypes, which had cost him $150,000, and one morning, at 2:00 in the morning, he began to blow the whistle at the residence where the rest of the referees were staying.

“People came running, attracted by the beautiful piercing, pulsing, 120-decibel sound of the whistle. They asked me if they could buy one. And I, following the recommendation of my wife Mary, told them that it was impossible because all my stock was sold out. But if they wanted, they could place new orders,” she says with a smile.

that weeka, Foxcroft vsold 20,000 whistles at a price of six dollars each and laid the foundation stone of his empire.

The quality of the Fox 40 Classic whistle made its popularity quickly spread beyond the sporting world. Foxcroft began to produce it in garish colors and the whistle began to be adopted en masse by lifeguards, search and rescue teams, the Coast Guard, security forces…

“It’s what I’m most proud of. Because this whistle saves lives. Just this week, a skier in the mountains of western Canada got lost after dark. The rescue teams found him thanks to his Fox 40 whistle in the middle of the night, with temperatures well below 0, with a broken leg stuck in a hole, ”he says with suppressed emotion.

“These are the stories that keep me going every day despite my 76 years,” he adds.

Every year F.oxcroft, his children with whom he shares the management of the company, and his staff add new features to the design. Now, one of Fox 40’s 41 whistle models is used in most sports leagues around the globe.

Foxcroft acknowledges that basketball and soccer are its best sports markets but that currently 60% to 70% of its total sales are for the security and search and rescue segment.

“We are saving lives,” he concludes proudly.

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