South Yorkshire team, Sheffield Wednesday warned supporters at the beginning of the 2024/25 season, stating: “anyone found to be wearing a fake shirt inside Hillsborough could be asked to leave”. It was also made clear that the official club shop – Owls Megastore – will refuse requests to add numbers and letters to counterfeit shirts.
The club’s reasoning was that fake shirts “impact directly on club revenues”.
This leads us to question the club’s high prices for kit, with an adult’s home shirt being priced at £72. In the Championship, Wednesday has the most expensive costs for shirts. Therefore, many fans have resorted to not purchasing new kit or buying fake shirts.
Fans are put under excessive emotional and financial pressure to purchase kit.
Many fans have called into question the clubs morals in allowing them to pay such high prices for shirts to simply support their team.
Football shirts give supporters the means to feel a part of something bigger and to be united amongst other fans. With teams such as Wednesday weakening this element, fan morals and atmosphere on game days could be damaged. This only makes the situation worse for the already struggling club, potentially causing the connection between fans and the team to become increasingly fragile.
Furthermore, by increasing prices of kit and banning replicas, fans are put under excessive emotional and financial pressure to purchase kit. Teams could choose to keep the appearance of kits similar for a few years, in hope of preventing fans from being stretched financially and creating a larger sense of solidarity at matches. However, they choose not to, instead club owners like Chansiri decide to profit excessively from kit revenue, at the expense of fans.