Ninety quid!? For a football shirt!? Ninety f**king quid!? Are you kidding me? (Yep, it’s going to be one of those angry football articles). This week, in case you hadn’t heard, it was announced that England’s new kit for this summer’s World Cup will cost you a whopping £90. The announcement was made on Monday of this week, the 31st of March, a well-timed announcement for sure. Had it have come a day later then no one would have believed it.
The FA’s stance on the shirt price was pretty clear. “The FA's policy is to avoid any involvement with how its partners/licensees set their prices, so as to avoid any risk of or implications of price fixing." So essentially saying ‘it’s not us, it’s them’. Referring to Nike, the shirts manufacturer. It seems that every week we have something to blame the FA for, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone if they are in any way responsible for this travesty. Just having their name associated with it will further damage their fragile reputation.
One thing that makes this a further slap in the face to the fans is that this kit has arrived just 10 months since the release of the last kit in May of last year. For years football has had a reputation for changing kits too often in an attempt to squeeze an extra few pounds out of the fans. But 10 months is ridiculous even for football.
Especially when you consider that the England team have played just 7 games in that time. Really, what is the point in releasing a kit for 7 games? Or releasing a new one now for a tournament where it would be a minor miracle if we played more than 3?
£40 for a new football shirt isn’t exactly reasonable, but it is the price that we have come to expect from our clubs and country and one that we just about accept now. So how can Nike or the FA justify a £50 increase over a 10 month period? More than doubling the price!
Using the average rate of inflation in this country over the last 20 years I managed to work out (with a little difficulty, I’m not Stephen Hawking) that we shouldn’t really have expected to pay £90 for a football shirt until the year 2049. So this unwelcome surprise is a little premature to say the least.
No justification for the price hike has been provided as of yet. Well, wait, that’s not completely true. According to Nike these shirts have ‘enhanced cooling technology’. Well in that case let me get my cheque book out! The other selling point offered by Nike was that these shirts will be identical to the ones worn at this summer’s World Cup finals.
I thought that would have gone without saying to be honest. It’s a replica football shirt, that’s sort of the point. It replicates the actually shirts that the team wears. You wouldn’t charge a huge amount for a coffee mug because it will ‘securely contain your drink’. That’s the bare minimum that you would expect from it.
There is a ‘cheaper’ option, I should point out. Something to make an England shirt an achievable dream for the rest of us. One of these ‘stadium shirts’ as they are known can be yours for just £60. Not much of a consolation is it? Before you ask, no, these stadium shirts DO NOT have an enhanced cooling system like their more expensive brothers. Other than that, it’s not clear what the difference is.
But what that means is that you can buy a replica England shirt, which is not an exact replica, and still pay £20 more than what is the already pretty expensive average price of a shirt. No, just no.
David Cameron threw his two cents into the controversy this week. Through his spokesman, Cameron backed the idea of a ‘rethink’ on the shirt prices. Now, whether you’re a supporter of Cameron or not isn’t really important. If the Prime Minister is waging in on the debate about the price of a football shirt then something must be amiss. The shirt has been priced at a level that has triggered a national debate. They say that all press is good press but Nike must have hoped for a warmer reception than this.
To a certain extent, we are powerless to affect this issue. This is a free country and Nike can price their goods however they see fit. But we can vote with our feet. Don’t buy the shirt. If you do then you have no right to complain when the next one (in what, 6 months’ time?) is priced at another £90.
Fortunately, I’m not going to try and rally you all into some sort of mass boycott of the shirt. Because it may not matter how you feel about this price hike or the low expectations of the England team, that’s because if you’re like me then you can’t afford it anyway!