In the last few years, collecting football shirts has turned into a popular hobby for a growing number of fans. But are football kits only pretty patterns and shining colours? In this episode co-hosts Francesco and Guy talk to author Alex Ireland about the politics and economics of football kits, from their development into contemporary fashion and leisure wear to how choices about sponsors, badges and players' numbers can be political. Alex also discusses the differences between men's and women's playwear, the impact that produces all these polyester shirts is having on the environment and the ethical implications of choosing an authentic or counterfeit jersey.
For all this and more, do check out Alex's new book, Pretty Poly: The History of the Football Shirt, which is now out and available to buy.
In the last few years, collecting football shirts has turned into a popular hobby for a growing number of fans. But are football kits only pretty patterns and shining colours? In this episode co-hosts Francesco and Guy talk to author Alex Ireland about the politics and economics of football kits, from their development into contemporary fashion and leisure wear to how choices about sponsors, badges and players' numbers can be political. Alex also discusses the differences between men's and women's playwear, the impact that produces all these polyester shirts is having on the environment and the ethical implications of choosing an authentic or counterfeit jersey.
For all this and more, do check out Alex's new book, Pretty Poly: The History of the Football Shirt, which is now out and available to buy.
Guy Burton 00:10
Hello and welcome to another episode of the FootPol Podcast where football meets politics. I'm your co host, Guy Burton, and I'm also joined by my other co host in Derby, Francesco Belcastro. How are you doing?
Francesco Belcastro 00:22
Hello, Guy. How are you?
Guy Burton 00:23
Good, good, thanks. So today, this week we're going to be talking about football kits and the politics of football kits. Francesco, I believe you have a number of kits as well, or not.
Francesco Belcastro 00:36
I have a small collection, but I don't want to say how many I've got because our guest is going to put me to shame with this collection.
Guy Burton 00:44
Absolutely. Because today we're joined by Alex Ireland, who's an academic and an author and a football kit collector. And I understand from Alex that at some point he had maybe around 4-500 in your collection. That's correct, isn't it, Alex?
Alex Ireland 00:59
Yeah, it was an unholy amount, I'm afraid.
Guy Burton 01:02
Okay.
Alex Ireland 01:03
Yeah.
Guy Burton 01:04
Anyway, so welcome to you, Alex. It's great to have you on the show. Alex is actually the author of a book about football know, sort of their evolution, their development called Pretty Poly, which is available from Pitch Publishing and it was published in August. But he's also a writer about football kits and football history more generally. So he's written for publications like the World Soccer and United We Stand, the fanzine, as well as another German fanzine called Halb Vier. He's also a supporter of Manchester United and amongst - and I understand that he's also particularly interested in long sleeved club football shirts. So would you, Alex, like to tell us a little bit about maybe your favorite long sleeve shirt in your collection?
Alex Ireland 01:46
The 1990s is my, when I came of age and I think that for many people that's obviously the golden era as they see it in shirt design. So yeah, quite a few of them. People might remember the beautiful purple Fiorentina Nintendo sponsored shirt that was worn by the likes of Gabriel Batistuta. So that's a big favourite. And a bit more niche is a team Bochem in Germany. They had a sponsor who had a rainbow logo and they were not content to just have this little rainbow logo on the front. So it was the National Lottery equipment provider. They set up a clothing manufacturer and made the shirts for the team for two seasons in the late nineties. And they made them as a series of rainbow stripes all the way down. So we talk about kind of intrusion of company logos now, but really in the was even more pronounced.
Guy Burton 02:39
And I'm seeing that you're wearing a football shirt today as well. Would you like to tell us a little bit about that one.
Alex Ireland 02:45
Yeah, I think people always feel cheated if I don't. So this is, again from that peak 90s era. So this is a Dinamo Kiev, late ninety s, ninety seven, ninety eight shirt. So people might remember Shevchenko and Rebrov firing them to a Champions League semifinal.
Guy Burton 03:01
Okay, excellent. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you for taking the time to come on and talk to us about football. Know, obviously, we are a show that's interested in the relationship and the interaction between football and politics. And so it's not something that you generally think of when you're thinking about football kits. Politics isn't the first thing that jumps to mind, but your book and some of the work that you've done sort of does show that there is this connection at times. And I was wondering if you could tell the listeners a little bit about how and why that is.
Alex Ireland 03:32
I suppose football clubs come from originally from groups of people that are part of a community or a group that have the same interests or beliefs. So it's maybe not surprising that a lot of them end up with political symbols or being related to politics. So often the shirts will be inspired by something that's kind of quite close to the club's identity. So a good example probably is the Scottish club. So we have Hibernian and Celtic, who predominantly Irish Catholic founders, and so they play in green. And on the other side we have the predominantly Protestant Rangers Club and identity a lot with British identity and the Union Jack. So the blue and the red and the white are very prominent in their kit colours.
Francesco Belcastro 04:17
Building on this. So justice can be used for political messages, or there can also be cases in which maybe it's not necessarily the intention of the clubs to use justice for a political message, but that's the way this is interpreted. Can you give us any other example of cases which are particularly relevant? You mentioned the Scottish cases, but is there anything else which might be interesting to share with our listeners?
Alex Ireland 04:42
I suppose, talking about... There are some that are unintentional, as you've said. So Barcelona, for example, have been a symbol of Catalonian independence for a long time, and they've started to use things like the senyera of the Catalonian flag, the yellow and red, that becomes very prominent, particularly in the way shirt design, and particularly under Franco, where other elements of being able to express your Catalonian identity, like use of the language, were banned or suppressed, then it became one of the few vehicles to be able to express your kind of Catalonian identity. And so that senyera away shirt becomes very prominent symbol. There are lots of different cases and sometimes, again, they accidentally become an icon. And there's a very good recent example. Obviously, women's football has traditionally, there's been a lot of prejudice and suppression by the authorities, and it's not really been given good exposure until the last few years. And this is extended to football kits. So generally, the women's, even national teams, would get these big, baggy cast offs from the men's teams. And it was only probably the last few years that have actually had specific, bespoke designs. And we saw this year at the World cup that we had Mary Earps, who's one of the world stars, she plays for Manchester United, she's one of England's best players. And you couldn't buy her kit. And it's absolutely unthinkable to the idea that Johar, or his equivalent in the women's game, you simply couldn't, if you're a follower of the team, be able to model your hero. So that became a kind of political cause that there was a lot of pressure to have this made available. And actually, yesterday it was made available and sold out almost instantaneously. So clearly a big appetite for it.
Guy Burton 06:35
Yeah, and not just that, I think, if memory serves me, in the last couple of years as well, the English women's team made the point that they wanted white shorts because it doesn't show up menstruation. Sort of the unthinking nature of football kit design meant that... Sorry, not white shorts, wanted to move away from white shorts, because the unthinking design didn't take these kind of points into account. So would you say then that actually the thinking and the design of football kits is becoming more sort of inclusive than it was in the past?
Alex Ireland 07:06
Yeah, absolutely. As I said, there wasn't even a concept of having a women's kit, first of all, and then there have been moves to make that happen, so, particularly the last ten years, as I said. But even in this case, it's generally a very particular brand of femininity that's pushed forwards, it's pinks, it's purples and so on, which a lot of women who play football wouldn't identify with. So it's getting there, but there isn't the attention that the men's game receives. And the reality is it's just commercial pressures now that there is more focus, there are more fans, there's more advertising revenue. Then, to look at it cynically, for Nike and Adidas, it makes sense to do these things. They didn't think there was a commercial market for the Mary Earps shirt, so they didn't make it and it's been proved wrong.
Guy Burton 07:57
Yeah. If I may as well, it also sounds a little bit like sort of the development of the football shirt, or at least the replica shirt over the years as well, right? Because it was never initially. I mean, you see adults walking around today wearing it, but it wasn't originally thought of as such, was it?
Alex Ireland 08:15
No. So until, say, 1960s, it was very difficult to get any kind of shirt. The concept of wearing it wasn't really a thing. And then you had umbro produce very generic shirts. It would be a red shirt with white socks and white shorts, and really lots of teams would wear the same thing. There wasn't any element of the design that was unique to a particular club. And it was only when Admiral came in and took advantage of recent copyright legislation that allowed the preservation protection of a particular design that we saw specific club replicas come in. And even then it was quite slow. And, as you say, it was targeted at children. There wasn't the idea that an adult would dress in a football shirt. It just wouldn't have fitted with supporter culture. And then eventually it emerges and becomes something that's incredibly popular in a massive, massive industry.
Francesco Belcastro 09:11
On this note of sort of changes to the way that we think about football jerseys, your book has got a wall chapter dedicated to sponsors, and sponsors on kids now are something we consider normal. But this has not always been the case, has it? How has it happened that we ended up with sponsors on kids? When did this happen? And was there any sort of pushback against this when it first started?
Alex Ireland 09:35
Yeah, absolutely. So there were cases back into the 1910s where companies who had a close link with a football club would sponsor them. But that's a kind of internal thing. So it really wasn't until the get isolated examples dotted across the world. And then, really, the 1970s, you start to get more of the leading clubs. Certainly by the end of the 1970s, having a sponsor. And really, I think it's just this increasing recognition of the commercial potential you start to have. TV broadcasts become more common. Also in England at least, you have the relaxation or the abolition of the maximum wage in the start of the 60s. So by the end of that decade, player costs, the wages are much, much higher, and so you start having to be able to fund that. And then we see into the 1980s, it becomes ubiquitous. But, yeah, football shirt design has always been very conservative. Even things like shirt numbers took a decade to emerge, something so simple. So there was a lot of pushback from FAs in different countries and also the TV companies, because they felt that it was free advertising and they weren't prepared to support that. So, yeah, there was a lot of friction in terms of the introduction of sponsors.
Francesco Belcastro 11:01
Fast forward to our days and we see so many sponsors that are either directly or indirectly connected to states or to institutions. Perhaps Azerbaijan and Qatar are famous cases in the last few years. Is that something that is seen by some as problematic? And why would a state put its name on a football jersey?
Alex Ireland 11:23
Yeah, I think it's problematic for a couple of reasons. One is this idea, the concept, again, it's become ubiquitous of sports washing that the idea that football is being used as a vehicle to rehabilitate the reputations of countries that perhaps don't have the best record on human rights or other controversies, that might mean that their international reputation isn't very good. So that's one of the reasons, is the idea that football is being used as a rehabilitation tool. And then one thing that's become increasingly important is financial restrictions that have been put on clubs. The idea that to preserve the original idea was to prevent clubs getting into financial trouble, there has to be restriction on their spending. And in some cases there have been sponsors who've been very clearly linked to the owner, particularly when it's a state related body that have sponsored, let's say, an unusual amount of money. And the suggestion is that there's some kind of inflation of income by slightly dubious means.
Francesco Belcastro 12:26
I think we can all think about one or two high profile cases.
Alex Ireland 12:29
115, I think, maybe as well as.
Guy Burton 12:33
Sponsors, you also notice that a lot of football shirts these days as well, have various badges and patches. Some of these patches appear on the shirts and some of the players are not happy with the message and will refuse to wear the jersey, right? I mean, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that.
Alex Ireland 12:49
You'll know a lot more about this than me, but I think politics has become so much a bigger part of everyday life that people right across the country are so much more engaged in it than they would have been maybe ten or 15 years ago. And because football reflects society, there's been a lot more of the politically related messages that have appeared on shirts. And obviously, when you have something in politics, there is going to be some people that support it, and for others, it's a negative thing. And thinking of a few examples we see each November that the poppy shirts in support of the poppy campaign, that Premier League clubs wear a poppy on their shirt around November the 11th. And certain people support that. But look at examples like James McClean, who is from Northern Ireland, identifies with plays for the Republic of Ireland, and for him, this is kind of a symbol of violence and oppression against his community, and so he refuses to wear it and has received a lot of abuse and bad press attention because of this. So, yeah, once you introduce a political symbol for a certain group that is going to go against their beliefs. I mean, another one example is the French League had rainbow colored numbers and lettering to support LGBTQ plus causes and offer some representation. And particularly there have been some cases of Muslim players or other players that their personal beliefs go against gay and lesbian rights, and they've refused to wear that and received a lot of negative attention. So, yeah, shirts are becoming more politicized. We could also see the Black Lives Matters movement that was appearing on Premier League shirts as a badge on the front. But also the player names were replaced for a series of games after the COVID break on the back. They're appearing a lot more readily on shirts, and that attracts some positive attention and promotion and obviously, for a subgroup of people that has negative connotations as well.
Francesco Belcastro 15:00
I think a similar argument could be done for numbers to a certain extent from the sort of players that want a different number and so try to modify their jersey. I think the one that comes to mind is Ivan Zamorano in the 90s, putting sort of one plus eight because you wanted the number nine, but someone else said it. Two players that perhaps took numbers or that were a reference to something. I think the case of Buffon always comes to mind there. So can even numbers be politicized, Alex?
Alex Ireland 15:36
Yeah, I think in many cases they're more personal than that. But as you say, there was this very high profile case. So Gianluigi Buffon, the Italian goalkeeper, when he was at Parma, he used the number 88, which has relationships to fascism. And so the 88 could be HH, Heil Hitler. There are established links for the number. He claimed innocence. There are a few other murky incidents that have followed him around in that same way. But again, any symbol can be politicized, can't it? So, certainly the number is ripe for that.
Guy Burton 16:17
When you mentioned the cases of both the poppy as well as the LGBT colors and the French shirts, do you think, though, that the subject got more attention because these players chose to refuse to wear the shirt? I mean, had they just worn it, maybe the campaign would have just sort of just ran and no one really would have paid much attention to it. So maybe it's sort of the reaction to it from the players, I don't know. And also what has been sort of the consequence of all of that? I mean, obviously there's been public outrage, but was there any kind of subsequent sanctions or action?
Alex Ireland 16:56
Try not to be cynical about it, but you see the rainbow washing by companies, that it's an easy campaign, that, you know, you got the support of the vast majority of people. And obviously we'll never know whether this is a meaningful case for support or just something that's thought of as being commercial. But I suppose it's disappointing that it's a relatively easy gesture to make. But then when it comes to a real kind of battle or to stand up for it, really, the authorities and the clubs and associations haven't appeared to stand up for it. So we see from the World cup, and it's not quite the shirt, but the rainbow arm bands when they were banned, the FA and other associations just let that. Yeah, it does increasingly appear more that it's a gesture and maybe views the actions beyond that. Haven't supported anything more than that, that's anything more meaningful, which is really disappointing.
Guy Burton 18:01
Yeah. Whereas the players themselves are making that decision, taking that stand. It is more than a gesture, isn't it? One of the questions we touched a little bit upon sort of the evolution of the football shirt and how it moved from being something that children wore to what people are sort of wearing in the stands. So replica kits are a big business nowadays, both official and unofficial ones, because obviously they're also counterfeit ones that come out for a lot cheaper. But I wonder if we can talk about a particular angle of this, the sort of the environmental dimension of football kit production and all of these shirts that are in existence. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about why this is an environmental issue.
Alex Ireland 18:48
Yeah. So the kits are nowadays made of polyester, made of plastic, man made material. So obviously it takes a very long time to degrade. When thrown away. It also produces little fibers. Every time it's washed, they go into the ecosystem. So we're talking tens of millions of shirts every single season, ultimately ending up in landfill at the end of their lives, and also shedding these plastics as they go. And even some, there are hundreds of thousands or millions of shirts just dumped in landfill without being ever being worn. So, yeah, clearly there's massive environmental impact. There has been laterally some moves to try and ward that off or minimize the impact. So 2010, Nike brought out a polyester shirt that was made from recycled plastic bottles. That was a gesture towards it. There's a Nottingham firm called Player Layer, who make - they make their kits from bamboo so much more eco friendly products. And Puma recently launched a technology where they can actually recycle old jerseys. So there are some ways to minimize the impact. But the most obvious way to minimize the impact would be to go back to releasing jerseys every two or three years. And obviously that's not a move that's been taken yet, with the very rare exception of teams like Brentford.
Guy Burton 20:19
Yeah, I'm reminded of that as a child wearing a shirt for two years. And you got a sense that it did last for a while because who wants to wear the last season shirt when the new one's out, right?
Francesco Belcastro 20:32
But also you would take breaks, Guy? You wouldn't wear it for two years, just for our listeners.
Guy Burton 20:39
Well, when I was ten, I pretty much wore my Aldershot shirt to death!
Francesco Belcastro 20:43
Okay, fair enough. Good to know.
Guy Burton 20:46
But yeah, sorry, Francesco, I think you wanted to ask something as well though, don't you?
Francesco Belcastro 20:50
Yeah, no, I wanted to remind listeners that in a couple of weeks we've got Rage sports where coming up as one of our interviewees who are this little company based in Italy, and they do ethical jerseys, so they're quite environmental friendly. I don't know if you encountered them, Alex. They are the jersey maker for Clapton Community Football Club and United Glasgow and other UK based clubs as well. So this is one, I think that conversation, if listeners want to definitely check the episode out. The environment is a big point and it's one of concern, obviously, but also cyclically, there have been discussions about human rights records and where are these jerseys made? And sort of the sweatshop debate. Have we had any progress there? Alex? I know there's been quite a of lot public opinion pressure on this, but where are we? Is it still a reason of concern, you would say?
Alex Ireland 21:53
Yeah. So you had the move from domestic manufacturing gradually over the 1970s and moved around the globe originally in Eastern Europe and North Africa and then out to the Far East. And yeah, there was huge concerns over worker welfare, particularly during the 90s. This was highlighted a lot in the media. And in fact, the EU had a big committee assembled to debate this and they found that there were a lot of limitations, a lot of practices that weren't really ethical or proper in terms of the way that workers were treated in the Far east for goods that would end up being sold in the EU. And to a certain extent, this and other media tension did force Nike and Adidas and Puma and so on to get their act together. And there were a lot more kind of regulations and inspections and so on brought in, but it's still a massive problem. And even in 2020, there was another EU report which found that a large number of the manufacturers weren't providing work conditions that are acceptable. So like many aspects like electronics or so on, there are goods in our homes that haven't been ethically produced. So it's something that's improving, but still not where we'd like it to be.
Francesco Belcastro 23:17
Now, I've worked a bit on sort of institutions and international organizations, and when you write and research on FIFA, there's always this myth that comes whether nobody's a myth or whether it's true, that Adidas has been kind of the secret partner of FIFA. And Sepp Blatter career has kind of started from Adidas, then he moved to FIFA. Is there any truth to that?
Alex Ireland 23:46
So Adi Dasler was the founder of Adidas, and really he was a technician. So his concern was the footwear, the product. That was how he saw the firm, and that was his interest. And he had a son called Horst, who was much more ambitious and much more not cynical, but alive to the potentials of different kinds of different kinds of marketing. And so he did go out there and he made really good relationships with people who would become very prominent. Juan Antonio Samaranch, who became very prominent in the Olympic movement. And as you said, people like Seth Blatter, who became very prominent in FIFA with the idea that friends in high places would leave you in a very prominent position to supply these organizations and clubs. Yeah, Adidas definitely stole the march on everybody else, and you see that they are very dominant in the World Cup, things like the footballs and the officials uniforms and things like that. So, yeah, certainly there is a huge element of politics around sportswear, and you have to be, again, it goes into things like they would pay off photographers to ensure that the photographs included the three striped spikes, as well as. Because you're going to have international publicity. So to chuck somebody a few hundred dollars in the 1950s to get that was really a worthwhile marketing investment.
Francesco Belcastro 25:15
It's been a successful strategy, though, because I think we associate immediately the World Cup with Adidas, don't we? If you think about World Cup and sponsor, immediately it comes to mind, this association. So whatever they've done, it looks like it worked.
Alex Ireland 25:28
Absolutely.
Alex Ireland 25:29
And other bodies have - There is definitely a case or a feeling in the sportswear industry that Adidas has this preferential treatment, and there are specific examples. So there's the, I think, 1981 European cup, where Real Madrid played against Liverpool in the final, and Real Madrid was sponsored by added us, and Liverpool were towards the end of their association with Umbro, who aside, they actually owned the rights to UK distribution of Adidas products until the mid 1980s. But Horse had obviously had a word in UEFA's ear, and as the players emerged in their branded, or were in the changing room with their branded Umbro kits, they were told that advertising brand names weren't allowed, and so they had to spend the warm up taping over their Umbro diamond, whereas the three stripes of the Adidas Real Madrid players was not seen as a brand related mark. So, again, I think Umbro definitely see that as example of Horst and his colleagues getting their tentacles into governing body.
Guy Burton 26:42
Can I just take you back to talking about replica kits, Alex? So you were talking about the big companies, the Nike and Adidas and others. They've supposedly improved conditions in their factories, but still there's more to be done. There's been sort of criticism even as recently as 2020. But one of the things I find quite striking is that, obviously, we're now seeing the emergence of. Because football, the official football shirts are sort of close to nearly 100 pounds now. You are seeing more, and people buying up shirts that are supposedly counterfeit, which are cheaper, around 20 to 25 pounds. And those who are involved in the football kit industry say, this is not a good thing. There's problems with this, because you don't know about the quality of the shirt, you don't know what goes into the shirt, you don't know the conditions of the workers in the factories. And it's not the same factories as the factories where the official shirts are being done. And yet, what I find hard to square is this point of saying the factories which are making these counterfeit shirts have poor working conditions, poor labor conditions, and at the same time, the established firms, the big companies, are also sort of getting it in the neck for not necessarily providing sufficient conditions. So, for a consumer who's thinking about, where do I buy my shirt? What's the thinking behind that?
Alex Ireland 28:09
I totally understand that it's very difficult, particularly the cost of living, to afford maybe 130 pound shirt for the authentic version. Even a kids version is probably 60 quid, the basic version, on launch. So it's very difficult for people to afford. I would say that these fake versions are not the answer. You're absolutely right. The sportswear manufacturers, I don't believe, have the workers in these illegal factories interests at heart. It's a pure commercial consideration for them. But that doesn't stop the fact that things aren't as we would like them to be in Nike and Adidas factories. But at least there is some external scrutiny, there's some focus on it. There is absolutely zero focus on these illegal factories. So it's very likely that the conditions are much, much worse. So, yeah, I would not say this is an alternative not to condone the lack of care given by Adidas and Nike.
Francesco Belcastro 29:13
Alex, this has been fascinating. If readers - if listeners want to get a bit more information on this, is your book out? Where can they buy it? Can you give us a bit more information on that?
Alex Ireland 29:24
Yeah, so it's available at a few different bookstores, likes of Amazon, Waterstones, et cetera, online. I think if you do find it, the title perhaps in hindsight, wasn't the best suggestion. So people, when they look for it, often find women's tights instead. So if you really want to have a look for it, generally it's pretty Poly with one L. And then Alex Ireland is probably the best way, or Pretty Poly: The History of the Football Shirt. But yeah, can find it online and also in physical bookstores as well.
Francesco Belcastro 29:56
We'll tag a link to our episode as well. So if people want to just go in the episode description and where they get their podcast, they should be able to get the link from there. Sorry Guy.
Guy Burton 30:08
No, no. And it's a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It took me down memory lane when I read it last month, but I think pretty much it all leaves it to be said. So thank you so much, Alex, for coming in and taking the time to talk to us about with regard to all of these questions. Francesco, do we have anything else that we need to say to the listeners?
Francesco Belcastro 30:29
Well, first of all, we need to remind our listeners that we're going to be back here next Monday with another fantastic episode. There's going to be Professor Seungbum Lee of Akron University on the topic of football in East Asia. So one not to miss. We need to remind our listeners to follow, subscribe, rate, and share the podcast so we can climb the podcast ranking. Anything else, Guy that we need to remind the listeners?
Guy Burton 30:55
No, no, I think at my end, I want to just thank Alex again for coming in and taking the time to talk to us.
Francesco Belcastro 31:00
Thank you, Alex. Thank you very much.
Alex Ireland 31:03
Thank you. It's been great to chat about a different element. I've had people who are interested in the fashion or the finance of the football kits, but yeah, it's nice to focus on the politics.
Francesco Belcastro 31:12
Well, as academics, we're not very fashionable, so...
Alex Ireland 31:15
Or rich!
Francesco Belcastro 31:15
Or rich!
Guy Burton 31:19
Anyway, thanks once again, Alex.
Francesco Belcastro 31:21
Thank you very much, Alex.
Alex Ireland 31:22
Thank you.