The shirt off my back

At the home of the Premier League and European champions, it is not a shock to see Haaland and Jack Grealish feature prominently inside the superstore at the Etihad Stadium.

Haaland, 23, pulls in huge numbers after helping his side to the treble last season and his No 9 shirt, the first you see when walking inside the City Store, is the most purchased. Fanatics, a global digital sports platform, tells The Athletic that Haaland has sold the most shirts across Europe through their site this year, but that Bellingham is quickly catching up.

Specific numbers around shirt sales were not disclosed by clubs or retailers when requested by The Athletic, but at City, this has been a record year for the retail department, highlighted this summer when their new shirt was bought every 12 seconds on the day of release — the busiest 24 hours of trading they have ever recorded.

Across town at United, the days of queueing outside Old Trafford to get a printed ‘Ronaldo 7’ shirt may be over but there’s continued love towards local hero Marcus Rashford.

Down in London, Arsenal have one of the biggest shirt printing displays in the country with a huge section named “Your Shirt, Your Way” in their club shop. Declan Rice is a popular recent request following his £105million summer move from West Ham United but lags way behind his club and England team-mate Bukayo Saka and Arsenal’s captain Martin Odegaard.

In Liverpool’s plush multi-storey megastore at their Anfield stadium — a thriving retail operation even on non-matchdays — thousands visit each week and are greeted by rows of shirts and other merchandise on arrival. The club website said in September that summer arrival Dominik Szoboszlai was the most requested name in the printing department in the early months of this season, although other online retailers have since said the club’s long-time top goalscorer Mohamed Salah still leads the way overall. According to those who know about these things, ‘Szoboszlai 8’ “fits beautifully” on the back of a shirt and has a “perfect ratio” of different letters. While that may sound far-fetched, it shouldn’t be forgotten that being easy on the eye is a crucial element to the success of a printed football shirt.

Industry insiders say there’s a shift towards supporters choosing to have their own name and choice of number printed on their club’s shirt, with a greater desire for ‘authenticity’ among younger fans.

The demand from supporters also dictates clubs’ strategy, so Brighton & Hove Albion decided to cater for their growing number of Japanese supporters by creating an area within their club shop, as City did for Haaland, specifically for popular winger Kaoru Mitoma.

The 26-year-old is not quite in Son Heung-min territory — the Tottenham Hotspur striker and captain, who is holding the fort following the summer departure of Harry Kane to German champions Bayern Munich, is a leading shirt seller for his club and the game’s most-popular Asian player worldwide.

For years, Son has been the poster boy of the South Korea national team and, according to Fanatics, is the fifth-best shirt-seller across Europe since the start of the season.

One of Son’s international team-mates, Hwang Hee-chan, also sells more shirts than anyone else at his Premier League club, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Revenue from South Korea has increased 1,264 per cent for Wolves in the two years since his signing — this summer, one wholesaler ordered 1,500 of their shirts, all with “Hee Chan 11” on the back.

Wolves get raw deal from FFP

I used to see a lifelong Wolves fan for lunch once a month. He was approaching ninety, but still went to games. Sadly he passed away the other week. As football finance guru Kieran Maguire has noted, Wolves continue to be constrained by financial fair play rules. Radio 4 this morning described them as this year's 'crisis club' and the pessimists have certainly been piling in. Martin Samuel wrote sympathetically in the Sunday Times yesterday, saying that the Premier League drives talent away with regulatory red tape: 'Why could Al-Hilal sign Neves? Because Wolves needed the money. And why did Wolves need the money? Because the club had to comply with an artificial construct known as financial fair play. So Wolves are going skint, yes? No. There is no suggestion that Wolves are in financial trouble, only that they are failing to meet the rigours of FFP. Wolves’ owners appear to have the money to run the club, and invest in the club, and in fact came up with a pow

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000. The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts. Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day income is

Charlton takeover approved

The long awaited takeover of Charlton Athletic by SE7 Partners from Thomas Sandgaard has been approved: https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/se7-partners-obtain-efl-approval-for-charlton-athletic-takeover/ Charlton have had unhappy experiences with owners for over a decade, so how this works out will remain to be seen. There is certainly potential there, but will it be realised? This interview with Charlie Methven gives detail not available elsewhere: https://thecharltondossier.com/charlie-methven-on-the-record/

The Political Economy of Football V2

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