Any of you eagle eyed kit fans out there notice the creeping in of additional sportswear branding on shirts just recently? Umbro’s 07–08 templates of course include an extra diamond sleeve logo and the latest example involves the, quite frankly, massive Canterbury logos on each shoulder of the current Portsmouth kits that have emerged in the last month. I’m puzzled about this as I was sure the Premier League did not permit this additional branding in the same way that they do not allow secondary sponsors on the back of the shirts or shorts which is now common place in the Championship and lower leagues. If it is permitted why isn’t every other brand adding extra logos on their shirts? And why has it been allowed to happen mid-season? Its a mystery. My guess is that within the next season or two secondary sponsors will be allowed in England’s top flight and sportswear companies will be allowed to include more than one placement of their logo on their shirts.
Here are a couple of pics to show the difference. Since the additional logo shirts were introduced at the beginning of the year the club have switched between these and the standard shirts that were worn at the beginning of the season.
By the way, if any Pompey fans can explain any more about the additional Canterbury logos I’d be very interested to hear from them. You can contact me by clicking here.
Hi John,
I’m glad you cleared that up – I thought I was imagining those extra logos… or rather I wondered if I’d seen them earlier on in the season!
I agree with you – I think Championship-style secondary sponsors will soon appear in the Premier League. As long as it doesn’t end up the way it has in France. For many years now I’ve wondered at the sheer proliferation of sponsor’s logos all over their club kits. They always seemed to be one of the first to do that – not sure if that’s true or not – but they’re certainly one of the worst culprits… unless you like that sort of thing!
the strange thing is that pompey reserves are still wearing the ‘old’ shirts(source:arsenal res v pompey res)
maybe premier league unable/reluctant to act due to the ‘adidas problem’ of always using three stripes- logo or design?
Hello Chris – its funny, I’ve always quite liked loads of sponsors on a shirt…don’t know why…but you’re right, it can get out of hand and the Premier League no doubt will monitor it closely. I still can’t understand why the additional manufacturers logos are allowed on the shirts now though – I think Amir has made a great point, there may be a legal issue due to the allowance of adidas’ three stripes. Of course back in the 70s when manufacturers’ logos were first allowed on shirts only one was permitted on the front of each item of clothing. Umbro and Admiral got round this ruling by sneaking their logo on to the shirt/shorts taping/trim (Umbro’s diamonds were seen on almost all of their kits of the era). With a couple of retro-styled exceptions this trend virtually died out while adidas’ ingenious three-stripe branding (which is a registered trademark) has flourished and has even outlived their iconic trefoil logo.
I’m rather surprised by this latest inclusion on the Pompey shirts in mid-season, I first saw it in one of their FA Cup games and thought I was seeing things.
I wonder if Puma are watching, because I noticed that they omit the iconic cat logos from the Spurs shirts because of the supposed Premier League ruling (I haven’t mentioned Reading because I think their kits are made under the Puma licence by Genesis/Kit@ rather than Puma directly), seeing as Puma have included such logos on new kits for their other clubs around the world.
Mind you they did so with the Leeds kit in 1999, though UEFA made them wear a kit with a plain shoulder trim in European competition because of their (may I say daft) laws on football kits.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
This is fascinating. Has anyone got any links to pictures showing the inconsistencies?
Jay, I’ve just uploaded a couple of pics of the different away shirts. There are also the same inconsistencies with the home shirt although I don’t believe the black third jersey has been worn with the additional logos.
I agree that the Premiership will allow second sponsors eventually, but as said above, I just hope the kits don’t end up like the appalling French designs.
I actually prefer the Italian aproach where Inter have had their Pirrelli logo made smaller on some of their shirts.
Villa and Barcelona have both given up shirt sponsership to support charity (although Barca no doubt have done it to get around the fact they didn’t to have it and so fans can’t complain now that sponsership has been accepted).
Italian, German and Spanish clubs only have one sponser, and would have thought that additional sponsers would actually reduce the amount of money the main sponser’s pay. We can probably name the sponsers for most of the leading clubs in Europe, but I have no idea which company’s sponser most of the backs of shirts.
I know what you mean David – I’m working on some illustrations at the moment and am struggling to find out some shorts sponsors for various Championship teams. The visibility of these is so minimal they actually seem to be more of a distraction then a viable advertising opportunity. Can any one tell me Coventry’s shorts sponsor for 07/08?
Sorry, checked my picture collection, and can’t help. Nothing on Ebay at moment either.