NEW SHIRT LOOKS GOOD BUT WHY ARE CELTIC KITS SO EXPENSIVE?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
This is going to be a divisive argument but its one that I think we need to have. Celtic need to maximize their revenue, but the price and number of kits coming out every year is an overload in my opinion.
CELTIC NEED TO CONSIDER FANS’ FINANCES WHEN RELEASING KITS
I love football shirts. I’ve been collecting them since I was a teenager. These days however, aside from Celtic, I mostly buy older jerseys, or wait for sales if there’s a particular one I want.
What used to be a fun hobby has now become yet another indicator of the wealth disparities in our society.
I often hear the argument “well, no one is forcing you to buy it.”
That’s true, but going the other way, no one is forcing Celtic and Adidas to release 3 new jerseys every year, plus another 3 goalkeeper shirts. Then there’s the “heritage” shirts and the “love unites” shirts that have also become an annual tradition.
It’s unnecessary, it’s overkill. I know they’ve been doing it in England for years, but as with so many things in Scottish football, we need to stop using the English Premier League as some kind of benchmark.
When England released their new international kit prior to the last European Championship, there was, rightfully, an outcry down south when Nike announced the premium version would retail at over 100 pounds.
An English friend of mine instead got his from a certain Chinese site. I won’t say which one, but it begins with D and ends in H Gate.
He paid the equivalent of about 15 quid, whilst another bought the full price jersey. For comparison, we got together and looked at both side by side, aside from the tags inside the shirt, and the labels on the collar. The shirts were indistinguishable.
Now, these Chinese sites aren’t run as a charity. They can charge 15 quid and still make a decent profit, using what appear to be near identical materials.
However, I don’t blame Celtic here. The bulk of this exploitative greed comes from the manufacturers. In our case, that’s Adidas.
A 2023 investigation by the Mail on Sunday, used Manchester United’s latest jersey at that time as an example. It was also produced by Adidas and retailed for 80 pounds.
That price has since increased, as have, production costs, I’m sure. However, these are the most recent figures we have so let’s run with them.
Of the 80 quid price tag, 4.80 went to Manchester United directly as a royalty fee. 23.50 went to the manufacturer (Adidas) and 26.40 went to the retailer.
The rest went towards marketing, distribution, manufacture and so on.
This is why Celtic always encourage fans to buy direct from the club store.
It’s also why fans like me who live outside Europe typically only have the options of buying either directly from the club or from Adidas’ own local online store, Adidas.jp in my case.
There is the aforementioned “unofficial” Chinese alternative as well, but a number of countries are clamping down on such imports.
The fact remains though; no matter how you break it down. Something that can be manufactured for 8 quid should not cost 80 to buy. That’s just price gouging pure and simple.
So, what would be a fair price?
Well, we can look at Adidas’ own merchandise as an example. I’m in Japan so we’ll use the most popular jersey here, the Japan national team kit as a basis.
The Japan Goalkeepers Jersey, a simple green with a white trim, the Adidas logo on one breast and the Japan emblem on the other, retails for 12,000 yen. In Scottish money, That’s 65 pounds. Sounds not too bad, right?
But then, on the very same page on Amazon, there is another version of exactly the same jersey, just minus the Japan badge. That retails for 5,000 yen or 28 quid.
So, assuming Japan have a similar royalty fee for their Adidas contract as Manchester United do, they should get 5 pounds per shirt on top of the other costs. So, why does the shirt cost 65 pounds, and not 33 pounds?
Do you see where I’m going with this?
In what reality does it cost an extra 37 pounds just to sew a club badge on a shirt?
And let's face it, these days a lot of them aren't even stitched, they are ironed on.
The exorbitant prices these manufacturers charge fans for official club kits do not match up with either the manufacture and distribution costs of the jerseys, or the cut of the price that goes to the clubs. It’s not just fans being scammed; Celtic are being short-changed here too.
I still think 90 quid, as Celtic charged for the latest “heritage” jersey, is far too much. But if I knew that maybe 60 quid of that was going directly to the club, it would certainly make it more palatable.
But Celtic will be lucky to get even half that, if you buy from the club shop, and less than 10% of the price if we buy the shirt somewhere else.
I personally think a fair price would be around 40 quid. I’d maybe go a bit higher if I knew exactly how much of that money was going to the club.
The manufacturers trade on fan dedication, and there are few fans more faithful, more dedicated in the world than Celtic fans.
Something has to change. This greed is out of control and its ruining football everywhere.
It's also created an illegal, but highly lucrative black market in counterfeits.
Maybe the authorities need to step in, mandate a 2-year window for each new shirt release, or impose price controls. I don’t know how they’ll do that, but something needs to be done.
Until then, I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone who looked to China for a cheaper alternative in the meantime.