Should the sports industry get a red card for World Cup apparel waste?

A report from VoucherCodes reports that the UK is expected to spend £296 million on sportswear during this year’s World Cup. This adds up to a lot of football shirts. In fact, according to football merchandise analyst Dr Peter Rohlmann, it’s estimated to be between 18 million and 23 million shirts.

And there are a lot of options for football fans to choose from. With 48 teams qualifying for the competition, over 100 new kit designs have been released (including home and away strips, and other additions). There’s also multiple versions of football shirts available from official match kits to replica shirts and then the affordable and unofficial options.

 

What tends to be overlooked by fans and the sports industry is how innately wasteful this is. Green Football’s Great Save campaign makes this plainly clear, reporting that  100,000 tonnes of sportswear go to landfill every year or the equivalent of 500 million football shirts.

 

So, should sportswear retailers and brands do more to encourage conscious consumerism among fans who want to support their favourite teams?

 

Retailer returns scheme a licence to shop unsustainably?

According to research from UK supermarket chain ASDA, 80% of UK consumers believe football shirts are too expensive, and more than half have said that they’ve chosen not to buy one because of the cost.

 

That seems understandable given that official match shirts retail at over £100, with replica kits not much cheaper, bumping up at just under £100. 

 

Having spotted an opportunity, ASDA’s George clothing brand has created a selection of England and Scotland football t-shirts, which are officially licensed, that retail for £12 or less. And there are a few things to unpack here, starting with the accompanying ‘Shirt Happens’ campaign.

 

This allows customers who have bought an eligible George England or Scotland t-shirt to return it for another item if their team doesn’t make the World Cup final. So, if you buy the England t-shirt and England crash out before the final, you can return the t-shirt for a gift card refund. And the same with Scotland.

 

Customers are allowed to have worn their t-shirt and can still get the gift card refund even if the shirt is stained or damaged. They do have to bring the t-shirt back to a participating ASDA store within 24 hours of their team’s exit from the competition. ASDA says that any returned t-shirts will be donated to charity. 

 

Arguably, the ‘Shirt Happens’ initiative encourages unsustainable shopping behaviours. Consumers are essentially given a licence to buy clothing that they don’t intend to keep and potentially may only wear a few times. They also aren’t incentivised to look after their purchase as even damaged products can be brought back if the buyer meets the return conditions.

 

And yes, while these returned products go to charity, what happens to them after that seems a bit vague. Are these t-shirts going to be resold, recycled or reused somehow or end up in another country somewhere? Will they become part of the mountains of Western apparel waste that are growing abroad?

 

Fair-weather fans engaging in unsustainable buying behaviours

It’s also worth questioning who ASDA is targeting with its affordable t-shirts and return campaign. In its research, the supermarket found that 60% of Brits consider themselves "fair-weather fans" who only watch football during major tournaments.

 

55% of these casual fans say that wearing team colours helps them feel part of the occasion and 46% would consider wearing a football shirt specifically for a major tournament.

 

Half of all respondents also said they would be more likely to buy a shirt if they could exchange it after the competition ended.

 

ASDA’s low priced, officially branded t-shirts and knockout returns campaign both cater to these fair-weather fans. They give the retailer a way to capture shoppers who want to tap into the tournament culture but don’t want to invest much in it and are happy to discard their associated purchases as soon as the competition ends.

 

This is the opposite of conscious consumerism. While ASDA does highlight that by getting a refund to buy a different item of clothing, consumers can hopefully purchase something they will keep and get more use out of, the garment waste associated with this scheme is still considerable.

 

If England or Scotland make it to the final, fair-weather fans will not be able to return their t-shirts but are likely to discard them anyway - potentially into landfill. And if the teams are knocked out and consumers get gift cards to make another purchase, they’ve now bought twice as many garments with all the environmental impact that the associated production and disposal has.

 

Notably, Green Football’s research found that retaining a football shirt for nine more months, ie for a second season, can reduce the garment’s carbon, water and waste footprint by as much as 30%. 

 

This figure applies to proper kit as opposed to ASDA’s cheaper t-shirts, but it still highlights that the most conscious way to consume is to keep the clothing you buy for longer. This is alongside being intentional about what you buy.

 

ASDA’s World Cup campaign feels like the opposite of both of these things. 

 

Caption - Image credit: Jack Statten/Insider Trends

Reduce, reuse and recycling 

A few football clubs have started experimenting with reusing shirt designs for more than one season, but of course this doesn’t work for major tournaments that only happen every four years or so.

 

But the football industry could do far more to talk about the issues of apparel waste and champion re-sale and re-use. 

 

For example, this year Swedish football club IFK Göteborg opened a ‘re-use’ pop-up in the centre of Gothenburg. Partnering with the club’s football kit manufacturer Craft, the pop-up sold the kit and equipment used by IFK Göteborg during this football season. Fans could also shop vintage gear and repaired shirts.

 

When you consider that Circular Economy Guidelines released by UEFA in 2023 estimated that up to 60% of kits worn by players are destroyed at the end of the season, this is a great way to reduce waste and give fans a way to own a small part of their favourite club.

 

There are also a growing number of independent designers and charity collaborations where old football kit is turned into new clothing items or accessories, such as Hattie Crowther’s Soft Armour headpieces project. This is a great way of reducing the quantity of sport apparel that ends up in landfill but it also turns football shirts into items that consumers feel they can wear more regularly.

 

Part of the waste problem that the football industry has is that players regularly move between clubs which means new shirts are produced for their new club. Fans from their previous club often discard their old player shirts once that player leaves. Reworking them into new wearable items gives fans a way to still show their support for their team with less focus on the player name.

 

Caption - Image credit: Jack Stratten/Insider Trends

 

There is also starting to be a reframing of older kit into heritage items that capture a moment in footballing history. For example, fans may seek out the football shirt that a team had when they won a major international tournament or a retired player’s shirt from their greatest period of success. It’s a way of being part of the story of the game - either for fans who were actually there or those who wish they were - as well as acting as a conversation starter.

 

Professional football clubs and international teams could be doing more to encourage this behaviour with spaces like IFK Göteborg’s pop-up where fans can buy old kit. They could also offer upcycling services and even buy unwanted official kit from fans to sell on.

 

FC88 works with football clubs to turn their old, unwanted and misprinted football shirts, as well as other items where possible, into new products that can be sold to fans. This includes things like caps, bucket hats, laptop sleeves and a huge array of bags. FC88 and its European production studios create the items and then return them to the football clubs who can then sell them online and in their fan stores.

 

But another way that the wider sports industry could encourage more conscious consumerism is by not deliberately selling products designed for short term use and appeal. And a global event like the World Cup is the perfect attention platform for the industry to step up and start to have the sustainability conversation it has been avoiding.