Last September, HBO aired a REAL SPORTS exclusive on inhumane labor practices in India, where children were forced out of school to work in squalid conditions for pennies, stitching together soccer balls. Several children went before the camera and detailed the phsyical and mental anguish that the job put them through; one girl said she had to work until “her back aches and her eyes hurt.” Sounds brutal.

(If you look closely, you can see the discoloration from the orphans’ unrelenting tears.)

Of course, there might be a teensy weensy problem if the stories are completely fabricated, and according to the NEW YORK POST, that’s exactly what soccer manufacturing giant Mitre is claiming.

Mitre, the company at the heart of the shocking–shocking!!–expose, says they have interviews with parents who allege that their children’s cooperation was paid for by the documentary’s producers. Those interviews are the cornerstone of Mitre’s lawsuit against HBO, which was just filed this weekend.

“The show that was presented to tens of millions of people was a hoax and a hatchet job,” Lloyd Constantine, Mitre’s lawyer, charges in the complaint.

The company also obtained videos from the parents of two other children, Deepak and Aman Singh, 10 and 13, who they say also lied about squatting on dirt floors and missing school to make soccer balls, for the honor of being on television, the complaint claims.

The company, which presents itself as a conscientious manufacturer that fights child exploitation, filed suit in Manhattan federal court on Oct. 23, charging Gumbel’s show with libel and claiming it lost “tens of millions of dollars” because of the negative portrayal.

And now the fun begins. HBO’s in a world of hurt here… unless Mitre’s pulling a double-secret-reverse-bribe job and paying the Indians to say they were paid by HBO! Seriously, that’s about all HBO can hope for at this point. The videotaped testimony has already been entered into evidence, meaning any arguments about the admissability have already been lost.

Here’s a prediction: HBO will settle out of court for an “undisclosed” (read: MASSIVE) amount of money, and neatly tucked away in the deal will be a non-disclosure agreement, so all parties can forget about this unfortunate incident and just move on.

Oh, and HBO CEO will throw the film’s director, Bernard Goldberg, into a live volcano full of lava sharks. They’re real and they’re very very angry lava sharks.