Personally, clubs releasing three kits just isn’t an important issue that needs addressing. I don’t even think it’s an issue, let alone an important one. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with there being three kits on the market for people who want to buy one or more of them.
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Good shouts. But a good regulator can do lots of things at the same time.
One thing that’s slightly less important than the financial aspect is how fans are treated; safe standing area introduction, ensuring kick-off times are scheduled so that fans can get home using public transport, allowing Saturday 3pm kick-offs to be televised, ticket price increases.
They should serve the fans as much as the integrity of the leagues.
Writing a rule about kits won’t take up much resources, it doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to write a new rule. Enforcement won’t exactly take-up much of their time.
But why is it necessary? Just don’t buy them if you don’t want them. Nobody needs to have all or any of the latest shirts. Just buy the odd one when you really like one. It’s not like wearing a shirt from a season or more ago is an issue if you can’t afford to always buy a new one.
Or buy snide ones on the cheap. I wouldn’t buy them, but people seem happy with them, and while I often can see flaws, the quality of fakes is way better than it used to be, and many wouldn’t notice the difference.
I agree to an extent but I think it’s something the football regulator should be speaking to fans groups about. From my perspective it’s more of a “missing the old days” thing, more a vibes thing.
Maybe I’m also concerned that the modern kits in my collection won’t be worth as much in 30 years as my 30 year old kits are worth now.
And yes, the “unofficial kits” I’ve bought (mostly old ones to replace kits I’ve lost or have fallen apart) have been every bit as good as official ones.
Its especially a non issue when you get the links off @Calum
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The issue for me with kits is about kids and families. As an adult, if you do or don’t want to spend your money on shirts every year that’s your business. I always felt that rule was in place to protect kids as consumers and I thought that was worthwhile.
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My opinion is people should parent their kids better to prevent them from expecting new shit every year. My parents wouldn’t buy me all the shirts, or even a new one every year, and it was fine once they’d set those expectations. It wasn’t even really a question of whether they could afford it, more the principle of it around materialism.
Parents going on socials every season to complain about the cost of buying three new kits for their three kids always annoys me. If you can afford it, do it and shut up, and if you can’t afford it, tell your kids they can’t always get what they want, and then shut up about it.
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I think the kits are a symptom of the issue
I don’t think it’s about standards of parenting. A lot of football kits are made with younger people in mind. Almost every club will split their kits between a fairly traditional shirt designed to appeal to older fans (be it home or away), and one slightly out there, garish and bright shirt whose primary target market is kids and families. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that products aimed at kids should expect a greater degree of regulation.
Football is a really poor industry with regards to how it treats it’s vast audience of kids. Gambling in their face all the time, a major video game series that normalises overspending and gambling and exploitative prices for tickets, membership and shirts. I think it could do a bit better on all those fronts.
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Funnily enough my algorithm on YouTube brought this video up.
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Wait until the spring and you get them half price.
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Just bought last year’s authentic third for £55
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I don’t entirely buy the initial premise that these shirts are particularly aimed at kids. Take the away this season, woth the garish lightning bolt pattern, its inspiration comes from a shirt from the nineties, I think it’s more trying to capitalise on the nostalgia of people in their thirties and upwards, not kids.
But even if they are designed to appeal to kids, it still comes down to parents to do better managing their kids’ expectations. I grew up watching tons of kids tv and all the ads in between were aimed directly at me and fellow kids. I may have wanted nearly everything they marketed to me, my parents told me no and after a while I learned not to nag them for shit and that I could only get these things at Christmas and birthday, and that even then I’d only be getting one big present like a football shirt or video game, not multiple things.
When it comes to shirts, I see no reason why adults with their own money should have their consumer choices limited because some kids want some shit they can’t have. Kids and their parents can deal with it.
On gambling ads, FIFA normalising gambling, totally agree. I really enjoy gambling and I absolutely think that all gambling ads and sponsorships. I do think considerations need to be made in football for kids, I just don’t think shirts is one of the areas it applies to.
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Been considering similar with the black away. Only thing holding me back is I don’t really like the white and black patterned bits on the flank of the torso. But the general black body with bits of red and green looks so nice.
Again, I don’t think it’s about kids wanting the shirts and parents not being able to afford it or manage their kids expectations. It’s the aggressively targeting kids who are inexperienced consumers that I find a bit much.
It is annoying that Arsenal’s current kits aren’t a great example of what in talking about, I must say. But we’ve had enough neon yellow, garish purple and whatever else.
Anyway, this is clearly an issue on which we differ.
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For me it is about the parents because kids don’t really have their own money, it’s their parents who hold the purse strings and make purchasing decisions. Kids aren’t really consumers in that sense, it’s the parents who are. Generally speaking anyway.
I also don’t think the fact of having a neon yellow or purple kit meets the threshold for “aggressive” marketing at kids, even if I were to accept those colours were chosen with children in mind.
But yeah, we disagree, and I don’t see either of us changing our position, so happy to move on from kits and back to this fixture, like I said before doing another 9 posts about kits 
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Funnily, I don’t think either @JakeyBoy and @Leper is wrong here. Good parenting takes care of this issue, however likewise on the flipside just because parenting is failing shouldn’t be a means to a exploit* there’s should always be a social responsibility not to take the piss.
*Obviously not what Jakey is saying, just my view.
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At the souk in Dubai, sucker for anything Arsenal.
Convinced myself it’s going on the shelf in the office next to my Henry/Bergkamp picture but let’s see if it stays out the cupboard…
Almost bought a knock off of the new kit but they’ve got a blank space where the adidas logo should be
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