FA Announce Nike Kit Deal
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We told you about it last week, but today the Football Association has officially announced an new partnership with Nike that will see them create kits for every England team.
The world’s leading sportswear firm will design and make the clothing for our men and women’s sides at every level.
England’s first kits to bear the Nike Swoosh will be launched in Spring next year, as The FA marks its 150th anniversary and the agreement runs until 31 July 2018.
The deal represents a substantial investment, which will be reinvested by The FA back into the game across all levels, from the Senior team to grassroots.
The partnership includes the following elements:
- Supplying kit and match-balls to all of Club England’s 24 football teams at every level, including the men’s national teams, women’s, Futsal, disability and amateur
- Sponsorship and support of St. George’s Park, the home of the National Football Centre in Burton-upon-Trent, which in addition to hosting the England Senior team will train and develop a generation of coaches, referees and medical staff every year
- Supporting partner of Wembley Stadium, the home of English football
- Supporting partner for The FA Cup, supplying match balls for every round of the world’s most famous cup competition
- Supply of product to County FAs.
FA General Secretary Alex Horne said: “I am delighted that The FA has secured this new wide-ranging and comprehensive partnership with Nike.
“It is an extremely exciting time for both parties with the opening of St. George’s Park this year and The FA’s 150th anniversary in 2013.
“I would also like to place on record our gratitude to Umbro and their significant contribution to the game, The FA and England teams, over a 60-year period.”
Nike Brand President Charlie Denson added: “The pride and passion of England fans is renowned throughout the football world and we are delighted to partner with The FA.
“We look forward to supporting England teams at every level with innovative product technology and playing our part to help develop the future of English football through our support of St. George’s Park.”
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Comments
Your mum sucks
Nike will do awful templates i think
No one deserves that.
Not even the little team you support, whoever that is.
Good post mate, a lot of foresight in it.
I think Nike are ripping off the cadaver before they sel UMBRO. England was the UMBRO powerhouse and kept the brand alive since in the mid 90s more and more and more companies left and turn to the likes of ADIDAS and NIKE:
We all should think about NIKE and how they stole a footballing reputation they never possessed untill the mid 90s. They clearly bought into football like no other company.
The heritage of the brands has remained and still endorsed by some of the worlds best sportsmen.
Also with having links with two of the biggest clubs in the UK there is a chance Umbro could return to former glory.
Theyve ruined our countrys tradition etc. Umbro was england. They'll just give England a boring template they give for every other country
Although Umbro have made some classy kits for England, I think they have run dry of ideas (as seen by the pure simplicity of the past couple of England kits). Umbro are an excellent company at designing classy looking kits which look as if lots of time and effort has gone into them, however their current financial situation spreads doubt as to how long they will be able to last by producing high quality kits.
Nike have, over the years, quite rightly gained a reputation for producing generic and cheap looking kits. However, as of late, the Nike brand is at its strongest ever and they are churning out fluent kits which are both original and modern-looking. Of course, Nike do have their standard (and quite frankly boring) template kits which are soused across the various football leagues, but their unique kits are of the highest quality; one only has to look at the Nike Euro 2012 kits to see this. For example, the France kit was something completely new and at the same time, was incredibly slick and innovative. The Portugal kit was very smart yet simple, the Netherlands kit was extremely bold and worked brilliantly and both the Croatia and Poland kits did the job perfectly.
Nike are a very strong company, both financially and in terms of designing kits, and I hope this is the start of a long-term relationship between Nike and the FA.
your opinion but in my opinion nike are even tackier at the minute
What in your opinion would make a kit seem less "tacky"?
I see a lot of negative comments on this site in general but not many constructive suggestions as to how to improve.
It's a shame the FA aren't supporting British business; I hope that Umbro re-invest in the Premier League and below. Nike sold off Umbro, but not until (I am certain) they had secured deals with Manchester City and The FA. It's a real shame England's most established sports provider no longer has a flagship team from 2013.
I hope Nike provide exclusive templates for England's kits and I hope they buy into The FA's development model for the game in this country, as Umbro has...
I would have been more than happy with adidas to have taken over as suppliers, at least their international teams designs are stunning.
So since when has "pure simplicity" in a kit design been a bad thing ??? Class equals simplicity. An England shirt should NOT have go-faster stripes all over it.
Plain, basic straightforward - that's what we want.
I will be forced to hope the worst for England team, for the first time in my life.
The first kits will be copies of the Umbro ones, believe me. And after the first batch you supporters will have to enjoy Nike' s creativity until 2018... I can' t believe you will buy the kits anyway.
An era has closed, but I am sure Umbro will survive notwithstanding being massacred by their "parent company". They must, otherwise No more Umbro, no more football.
Despite the euphoria of England fans it is the start of the downfall for UMBRO. They will get ripped off the best pieces before their mother company sells them.
But in the end it is just overprced sportswear companies.
Another quitessentials british brand/company to die.
gotta say that nike should stick to what they originally design---shoes. i would subscribe to wearing freakishly-looking colors on my feet, but i can't consider wearing such colors on the rest of my body.
that said, we have at least five years to resurrect umbro. as a spoiled american, i'd most likely be surrounded by people with nike apparel, but i don't doubt that umbro has a special place in my heart.
Which is a good thing
It might have had an umbro badge on it but it was still Nike. Nike do bespoke kits for all the big guns I'm Europe so I just don't see the problem
Yeah, but like I tried to say below, although the France kit is very nice and clearly designed in a French style, many people associate the French national football team with an adidas kit as most of their iconic teams wore kits supplied by that manufacturer. The real issue isn't the quality of Nike designs but the association in many people's minds of England with Umbro. Too many traditions are being eroded in football as people at the highest levels chase the money rather than take into account the opinions and requirements of the average fan. This is just another example of that.
Lets be honest Adidas is football
Is this a reference to the first of the 'tailored by' kits? This is an opinion I've heard expressed about that kit before. Quite frankly, if you can't see that it was well cut and echoed a time when sportswear was much classier you're missing the point. It certainly didn't look cheap. It was a massive improvement on some of the messy, childlike designs that preceded it.
Quoting Jon:
I may be wrong but, while owned by Nike, Umbro retained its own designers- hence the massive differences between recent Umbro kits and recent Nike ones. The problem is that instead of sticking by an iconic British brand, inextricably linked with the England national team, the FA appear to have considered money above all else. Even if staying with Umbro was impossible due to their ownership issues, the FA could have offered Admiral the chance to tender for the kit contract to at least retain some degree of tradition
Don't kid yourself, its all about money. Nike realised they couldn't make money from Umbro so they binned it, making sure they clung on to the bits they could make money on- the England and Man City contracts.
From the FA's point of view it's a win-win situation to go with Nike. Plenty of money and an easy transition.
At least they didn't sign with Kappa!
Hey
Yeh they have but they have also been funding umbro themselves in making their kits, for Ireland, Southampton Sweden Blackburn, sunderland last two kits. Nike designers brought back the 'tailored by' in englands and citys 09 kits because they had researched well into umbros history that's why they brought back 1950s vs embroidery under the badge, so it may have been made by Nike but it was umbros historic kits that influenced it
Yeh your right they have but Nike have only designed england and citys kits under the Tailored by label which is based on umbros rich history in kits hence the bringing back of the 1950s vs embroidery under the badge. However Umbro design Southampton blackburn Sweden Norway and other foriegn clubs, and the funding for them comes from Nike
Shirt sales is a business. A business needs sales/funds to survive. Umbro never had this because they couldn't sell anything other than England shirts in enough volume. That suggests people were not buying the England shirt because it had Umbro on it. Ergo Umbro really didn't possess the so-called 'heritage/history' the 3 lions did.
Nike is a strong business and couldn't make Umbro profitable so change is required. This new deal is not before time. Umbro had run out of steam and was too reliant on Sports Direct selling their most prestigious products (England shirts) for £15! Nobody can survive like that.
No one is saying that Umbro weren't struggling as a company but if they couldn't sell England shirts why should Nike be any different. Especially if, as you quite rightly say, its the three lions that people buy the shirt for and not the manufacturer.
The sad thing is that the FA clearly went for the large amount of cash that American Nike must be offering them instead of supporting an ailing British business (and whoever their new owners might be) that they've been with for 60+ years.
Sorry may have been my wording... I'm saying they (Umbro) COULD sell England shirts but nothing else which wasn't a sustainable model. For Nike the England sales will not be there only reason to be which it was for Umbro and ultimately they couldn't make money from that venture alone.
Fair enough. You're right that Umbro don't seem to sell much of thier own branded non-club specific sportswear and Nike clearly do. But there have been some quite large contracts under the Umbro label recently (Rangers, Sunderland) so I don't agree that they were completely reliant on England. And the fact that Sports Direct were knocking them out for fifteen quid suggests that demand for England shirts can't have been great.
All of this is beside the point though. Its still sad that an institution like the FA aren't suppprting British business. And its sad that most major national teams, with one or two notable exceptions, are supplied by Nike or adidas. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.
Absolutely... and add Man City and Republic of Ireland to that list. Essentially all Nike's last attempt to revive the Umbro brand. Ultimately they (Umbro) have been far too entwined with Sports Direct for too long which devalues the brand and limits the desiribility.
There is huge demand for England product... the price SD was charging was them creating a loss-leader effect to draw customers in and sell them high margin own brand product at the same time. A bit like supermarkets selling bread and milk at a loss.
Do you want you your England shirt to be desirable or available to most at a reasonable price (£40) or should everyone have one (£15)? Don't forget... over supply ultimately leads to no one wanting one.
Im sure what you have all said is all good....i just coudnt be arsed to read it all
Is it? Personally I think his argument is becoming rather contradictory.
The pair of you seem to love Nike because they are a big, powerful organisation. But for many people this is the problem. They don't want the market dominated by adidas and Nike to the exclusion of everyone else. Even when they design bespoke kits for the bigger teams/clubs there is a distinct sameyness to the designs that these companies produce. Just look at the Nike kits from the 2006 World Cup.
If there was more competition in the market the overall quality would improve because companies would have to try harder for their market share. Unfortunately, the smaller companies can no longer compete with the big financial powerhouses. This isn't a good thing. If things continue at this rate you'll only have two choices when it comes to sportswear. And personally I'd rather have more choice than that because I'm an individual and don't want to wear the uniform of the unthinking masses.
The same applies to the England kit- I'd rather it was produced by a small company that designed something fairly unique to England rather than have something designed along the same themes as 50% of all other national teams.
I'm not pro Nike/Adi domination. Ultimately the business model of Umbro failed. It's an undesirable brand "for the unthinking masses"
I'm interested to know what you think the smaller companies are producing that you think is so much better?
For reasons of simple economics and efficiency, not every single Nike kit can be built to be completely unique from the ground up. However they do take an innovation template and build in an identity unique to that Club or Federation. That "sameness" you are talking about is actually a cohesive projection of Brand image.
You seem to have misunderstood quite a lot of what I was saying. I am merely suggesting that it would be nice if there was greater competition. Greater competition leads to an overall improvement of standards- this is a lesson we can learn from sport. This would lead to more variety and (hopefully) a greater number of teams with good quality, unique kits- surely this is what everyone wants for the teams that they follow?
By the way, excellent use of 'management-speak' there
It makes sense to think that overall quality would improve with greater competition. I'm all for quality and more variety. However, quality is very hard to improve without raising prices. example: The cost of raw materials such as cotton and polyester have doubled over the last 2 years.
I'm interested in what in your opinion would be a higher quality' kit. What would that actually look like?
The cost per unit for Umbro has increased massively since Nike took over in 2008 while the number of units they produce has decreased similarly so that they can no longer profit from the principle of economy of scale.
Then Nike took over the contracts for the two main teams Umbro supplied (England and City).
Almost seems as though it were all done on purpose to remove a competitor from the market...
I believe they hoped to make Umbro successful but knew there would be a safety net of probably getting the England and City contracts when/if the experiment failed.
Because they are simply unable to produce anything good, believe me it is too obvious.
For once, let's forget the "a matter of taste" thing and be arrogant: notwithstanding personal (bad)taste, their products offend a general aesthetic sense and are also of very low quality.
If I am not mistaken, they were born as producers of running, basketball and (maybe) footbal shoes for the US. Should have sticked to that, without invading the world with their rubbish (also all the stuff they release, from bathing suits to slippers) and appearing everywhere your eye may fall upon.
Again if I am not wrong, they have been kicked out from skiing market (!!!!) and biking owing to dissatisfaction from customers and consequent poor sales.
Let' s hope football fans start using their brain as skiers and bikers.
Nike are asset stripping Umbro of their best contracts before dumping them!
Yet more standard template garbage with crappy insulating tape on the shoulders!
Fat ugly man, looks like a troll
Revels the rivalry he has with Fergie
Stupid Jock, red nosed alkie
Wenger makes a fool of Jose
Just like Ashley, he is censored
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKJ_zCHLoKU
Where's Adidas?
Nike have no such history or pedigree. Chasing the pounds (bucks in their case) is the only reason for their involvement in football. Before the Sky billions they wouldn't touch it with ten foot clown pole!
Up the socceroos!! England 1 Australia 3
And gutted that after all those years of tradition
England will wear the American kit brand
What a shame, someone rich please buy Umbro and restore it to former glory