Football Shirt Culture.com

Footballshirtculture.com is one of the members of Myfootballclub who recently bought Ebbsfleet United. We want to ask you to help us with the following decision..

Myfootballclub members are to vote on whether or not to accept a kit proposal from Nike which would begin in 2008-09 and members have been given three home and away kit choices each to choose from.

 What should we do? Should we accept this deal? and which designs should we choose??? see the details here, and give us some advise.

Nike's UK Team Sales Manager Paul Gillespie has outlined his company's proposal and how it would benefit the club:

"Towards the end of 2007, a couple of MyFootballClub members approached us. We then made direct contact with the MyFC organisers offering to supply Ebbsfleet United (should the takeover go through, which it now has – congratulations!) with kit and other club merchandise for the 2008/2009 season.

The model that we have proposed is tried and tested and has proven to be very successful with a number of professional League clubs.

The basis of the proposal is that the club outsource its retail merchandising operation to Nike, including all online sales. In return, the club will receive quarterly royalty payments against all sales made. Royalty payment percentages will increase with sales.

Taking replica shirts as an example, for every replica shirt bought, the club would receive up to 35% of the net sale. This would be pure profit for the club. If 30% of members buy a replica shirt, or another item of similar value, the club would receive a six-figure sum in royalties. Members will be able to view a monthly retail sales analysis showing overall online and club shop sales, with a break down by some of the best selling items, on an ongoing basis.

As we have contracts in place with other professional clubs, we are unable to disclose certain information (eg. specific royalty levels) publicly

We believe that the benefits of this proposal for Ebbsfleet United are:

• - All staffing and operational costs relating to club shop and online sales will be financed by Nike.
• - Members will choose the designs of the home and away shirt.
• - A wide range of Nike club crested training & leisure products will also be available to fans and members.
• - Club shop website updated and maintained by Nike.
• - All online orders serviced, packaged and distributed by Nike.
• - Club shop at the stadium upgraded.
• -We have also agreed to do the following for the club at no cost:
• - Supply the first team squad with an allowance for new training kit for the remainder of this season.
• - Supply the first team squad with 2008/09 season playing kit (typically long & short sleeved home and away jerseys, shorts & socks), match travel wear (track suits) and an allowance for training gear.
• -The Nike Boot Bus will visit the training ground and the first team squad will test a selection of boots and be given one pair of their choice.

We hope you will appreciate that this is something of a step into the unknown for us and predicting the levels of sales cannot be an exact science. As such, at this time we cannot commit to providing a kit allowance for Ebbsfleet United's ladies and its youth teams (of which we are told there are around 20) next season. However, we will pledge to provide one full kit per team every 250 sales of replica shirts (or equivalent).

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish your club all the best (promotion via the play-offs place and the FA trophy, perhaps?) for the remainder of the season..."

The kit designs are as below: