According to a story on the BBC website, a number of replica football kit manufacturers have been taking steps to put off supermarket chains from stocking their product. Nike was the only company actually named in the piece, although Asda told the BBC “that other major suppliers have used similar criteria”.
Criteria set out by Nike in a 12-point list include allocating specially trained staff to the company’s product and not placing them near “unrelated items”.
In a statement Nike said: “Nike markets its product in the UK in accordance with a retailer distribution policy, ensuring that the retail environment for the sale of Nike products complies with certain minimum quality standards so as to enable the customer to make purchases in an appropriate retail environment.
“Retailers meeting the relevant minimum standards can purchase the relevant Nike products, including football shirts.”
In the past independent sports retailers have complained that many supermarket chains were selling replica kits, particularly around major international tournaments, cheaper than what they could purchase the product for.
In another story that’s hit the headlines today, telegraph.co.uk is carrying a piece headlined ‘Expensive trainers – a waste of cash’, which highlights recent research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
You can read the full story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/11/ntrainers111.xml
