Often, I find myself scrolling eBay and vintage football shirt sites teetering on the edge of spending money I don’t have on shirts I don’t need. That’s the football shirt market. Us as football shirt aficionados find ourselves doing this more than we probably like to admit.
Vintage selling has been a big trend in mainstream culture for a while now. We’ve seen independent sellers popping up both online and in physical stores selling everything weird and wonderful from decades gone by. And in recent years, we’ve seen substantial growth in the football vintage market, especially. Football shirts and merchandise is traded in exponential numbers among fans and fashionistas alike.
When browsing the internet, as we do, we came across a video focusing on a Genie from Aladdin vintage t-shirt sold for $6000 and this posed the question: will there ever be a football shirt (vintage or modern), that isn’t match-worn, worth anywhere near this much?
My thoughts are ‘probably’ and this is purely based on the way the vintage scene within football is heading and the infiltration of fashion and hypebeast culture in the game. Using the wonderful website Cazumo, I delved into the history of the value of vintage football shirts.
Since the release of some of the most iconic shirts, we’ve seen an incredible increase in price due to rarity and icon levels. For example, according to Cazumo the 91/92 Barcelona away shirt retailed at £27.99 and has seen an appreciation of 2044%, which brings the shirt to an average of £599 to buy an original. The shirt was worn under the famous European Cup glory under Johan Cruyff, cementing it as an all-time great in the shirt world. Netherland’s 1988 shirt worn by Marco Van Basten and co have seen a 1901% appreciation since it was retailed. Pretty significant increases in price, showcasing pretty fascinating trends. But where does the growth of the price stop, if at all? However, the point must be noted about the impact of this on football fans. This appreciation stands as a significant point of how football fans can be priced out of the things they love. It’s not the same as fans being priced out of match tickets through the corporate influence on the game but it does showcase the changing times of the game where football fans cannot acquire the things they adore and admire due to the financial capitalism of the game.
The vintage football shirt is booming, with more and more regular collectors popping up and more and more people starting to sell shirts themselves. The increase in popularity surrounding football shirts is wonderful to see but the one thing I am sceptical about is the financial aspect. As the popularity grows, demand for shirts does too. This drives up the price, meaning to get a rarer shirt you will need to fork out a lot more money than you would have needed to a few years ago.
A question that poses itself is ‘how far will the price grow?’ and I feel we can never actually conclude an answer to this. As time goes on, the price just seems to increase. But will we ever see a $6000 dollar vintage football shirt?
As we see more mainstream fashion brands look to football for their latest collection, we might just see more collaborations between clubs and kit manufacturers that break the realms of Adidas, Nike and Puma and look further afield to the likes of Dior, Balenciaga and Gucci. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon, where we see Tottenham Hotspur strike a deal with Dior on their new kits but it is food for thought as we see more mainstream culture take notice of the football shirt market. And if these collaborations come about, we see the collision of football fans and fashionistas coming together to drive demand for a shirt which could potentially see a non-match worn shirt rise to a four-figure number.
We’ve already seen the infiltration of mainstream brands into football. Take a look at Palace x Juventus, where the Italian club teamed up with the skate brand to drop a capsule collection and a matchday shirt which was actually worn by Cristiano Ronaldo and co. The shirt retailed at around $212 (£162) when it first dropped and looking on StockX, they are reselling at anywhere from $400-800 (£300-£600). And then Balenciaga showcased a range of football shirts on their catwalk, combined with their own actual pair of football boots. The high-end fashion brand’s football-inspired shirts currently retail at £825. Both of these aspects showcase solid evidence of price hikes and popularity increases.
To measure the price of a football shirt, various aspects must be considered. First, the design. If the design isn’t memorable or actually good, then the shirt won’t be looked at by collectors or wider fans. In order to pique interest, the design has to have some substance. Think of the truly spectacular pattern of the ‘88 Holland shirt mentioned above or the classic looks of the retro Ajax shirts. These types of designs are the ones that hook a football fan on allowing for shirt sellers to reel them in to complete the transaction.
Second, the shirt has to be worn through a certain successful or iconic time period to truly bump up the price. The more memorable the moments in the shirt, the more likely the demand is to be eminently high. Think Argentina in the 1986 World Cup where Diego Maradona infamously scored the ‘Hand of God’ or England in Italia ‘90 where the nation dared to dream of ‘football coming home’. It’s these types of memories that can connect a fan to a particular shirt.
Thirdly, the availability of the shirt plays its part in how much it costs. Is the shirt incredibly rare? Well, expect to spend a significant amount of cashola in order to acquire it. And this only goes on and on as we wander through time. The icons from the 80s and 90s becoming increasingly difficult to locate and with that added demand, the price becomes ludicrously high sometimes.
I don’t know if we will ever see the likes of Dior and Gucci come into the footballing world and produce a high-end shirt with a high-end club. What I do know is, that we are seeing exponential growth in demand for football shirts and this is driving up the price. Will we ever see a $6000 vintage or modern football shirt? It definitely is a long way off but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Luke is a football culture wunderkid with a love for football shirts and their history. Founder of @theculturedivis and a creative focusing on all things football including photography, writing and design. He sees football as art, so keep your stats and give him a Hatem Ben Arfa silky dribble any day.
