Should shirt sponsorship be allowed in international football?

[legendz]

I'd have thought it might have come in by now. It's not exactly easy for the likes of the FAI to make money. Along win UEFA's recent announcement on TV revenues for qualifying, shirt sponsorship is something else that should be brought in. It was brought in in rugby.

[BonnieShels]

No. Absolutely no way whatsoever.

Rugby doesn't allow it in the world cup.

[Crosby87]

Wouldn't really change much from the fans perspective since its hard to get the non sponsored one anyway.

[Lionel Ritchie]

hopefully won't happen for a long time in competetive internationals. Thankfully the whole issue is fraught with difficulty owing to likely sponsorship clashes with FIFA/UEFA "official partner" sponsors.

[legendz]

Do they not have official partner sponsors in the Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup?

[boovidge]

I don't want it to happen but logically there's no reason why it shouldn't if clubs are allowed to.

[mypost]

No. International football is about pride and honour for players, not commercial opportunities.

[Lionel Ritchie]

Do they not have official partner sponsors in the Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup?

Touché. They do. Still don't think it'll happen though ...and in truth I hope it doesn't. Too many aspects of the commercialisation of the game are base and vulgar enough as it is.

[pineapple stu]

The irony being that jersey sponsors at the moment is only being kept out of the international game because it's not commercial enough.

Doesn't really bother me either way to be honest.

[ifk101]

Shirt manufacturers advertise on the international shirts. Haven't Umbro a multi-million deal with the FAI?

[punkrocket]

Wouldn't really change much from the fans perspective since its hard to get the non sponsored one anyway.

I wouldn't mind one of those, where do you get them?

[tetsujin1979]

I'm convinced I read years ago that Uruguay played a friendly with sponsors on their jerseys, and were subsequently given a heavy fine by FIFA. Whether or not it was a equal or greater than the sponsorship money was not revealed.
While we're on the topic, any chance we can start a movement to have "shirt sponsorship" renamed "advertising"? That's what it really is. The company names pitch side hoardings are not called sponsors, they are advertisers, same goes with jerseys.


Slightly off topic, having grown up watching football with shirt advertising, I was fairly ambivalent to jerseys without company names on them until the West Ham - West Brom game two seasons ago where neither team had a logo on their jersey, and I realised how much better the shirts looked without them

[pineapple stu]

Ditto with the Man Utd v Man City game, where they wore 50s jerseys in memory of the Munich Air Disaster.

[Dodge]

Slightly off topic, having grown up watching football with shirt advertising, I was fairly ambivalent to jerseys without company names on them until the West Ham - West Brom game two seasons ago where neither team had a logo on their jersey

If it happened in the LOI certain posters here would be calling it a crisis

[Crosby87]

Punkrocket Last year they sent a shipment by accident to the FAI store. And they sold out quickly. If you want an unsponsored shirt go on ybig and you can hunt it down....for a price.

[Wolfie]

No. International football is about pride and honour for players, not commercial opportunities.

Quite right.

Speaking of opportunities, I used to have problem hair until I tried "SPONGE-O". Its the from the great NEW hair care range of products from Wolfex and now with the great taste of Anchovies.

BUY NOW!! BUY NOW!! BUY NOW!! BUY NOW !! BUY NOW !! BUY NOW !!! BUY NOW !!!

[dotts101]

i think one problem would be that some sponsorships may be only within that country and hence be of no added gain to the company eg when eircom had sponsored us, they an irish company what would it matter to armenia lichtenstein belgium any of them.

[punkrocket]

You'd probably see the big multinationals getting involved and sponsering a number of teams which doesn't really happen with clubs, with the notable exception of the Old Firm, don't really know how that works out when they are negotiating. I'm a bit old school about shirts though and don't even like it when thay are too fussy. Nice plain cotton like when I was a lad. Sponserhip can still add a bit of interest though, I remenber getting a mate an Al Ahly shirt in cairo years ago when Coca cola was their sponser, looked cool in arabic and was still obviously coke. Funny, I remember watching the european cup games as a kid and always liked the ads on the shirts, maybe it was the novelty, seems like it was brought in years before they had it over here or Britain. I've obviously become a bitter old git in the meantime.

[jbyrne]

I'm convinced I read years ago that Uruguay played a friendly with sponsors on their jersey

didnt we have Irish Cement logo on our shirts v Norway WCQ 1985? nearly sure we did

[EastTerracer]

didnt we have Irish Cement logo on our shirts v Norway WCQ 1985? nearly sure we did

I don't think so. We did have the Irish Cement shirt for Jimmy Holmes' testimonial game around the same time and there is a picture of Tony Cascarino wearing it (the testimonial was his first appearance in an Ireland XI)

http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/df/02/0d/7382351da841742ee71f3599c2/INPHO_00029596.jpg

[Charlie Darwin]

While we're on the topic, any chance we can start a movement to have "shirt sponsorship" renamed "advertising"? That's what it really is. The company names pitch side hoardings are not called sponsors, they are advertisers, same goes with jerseys.
No, sponsorship is right. Advertising is a one-off thing: a commercial, billboard, poster etc. Sponsorship is a longer term attempt to create an association in people's minds between the brand and the product.