During this Summer’s World Cup tournament, Master Frugal decided that he did like football after all.
He’s always enjoyed playing it but the World Cup seemed to really hold his interest and not only did he start to enjoy watching matches, he started to learn the players and appreciate the amazing skills some of the players have as well as developing a dislike of the divers and the biters that made the headlines during the tournament.
When the World Cup ended, he had a few new heroes to look up to and a new found enjoyment of all things football.
He even asked for a football kit although he was a bit torn by who he was going to support as he really loved watching the various Barcelona players who were playing for various different teams during the tournament but he felt like he should support his home team of Middlesbrough because lots of people where we live do.
We said he could have a Boro shirt if he really wanted one so off we went to the club shop at the stadium expecting to pay about £25 – £30 which I thought was over priced but acceptable considering the wear he would probably get out of the shirt. He went straight to the home kit when we got there and found his size and I was absolutely horrified when I spotted the price tag!
The shirts are always quite small fitting and he likes them to be baggy-ish so we were after a youth size rather than a child size but even the smaller children’s sizes were £38. The youth sizes are still small and I’d say they were for younger teenagers before they get large enough for adult sizes so £45 is absolutely ridiculous.
We left the shop without a shirt because honestly, I can’t justify that amount of money on what’s essentially just a t-shirt with a Boro logo on it.
We did still want to buy Master Frugal his football kit though so we went to the local sport shop and found this season’s Barcelona kit for £34 which is still way more than I wanted to pay but almost 25% cheaper than the Boro shirt! Not only that but we went to a car boot sale later the same day (with him wearing his new Barca top) and found last season’s (or the season before) Boro kit in his size for just £2.00!
Master Frugal (and some random woman) at the car boot sale just before his bargain find!
A quick Google tells me that football shirts can be made for as little as £5 in not great conditions so these companies (not necessarily Adidas but certainly other football kit makers) are not only under paying their workforce, they’re also over charging their buyers – many of whom are fans who they know will buy a shirt no matter what the cost is or will use pester power to get their parents to buy them one.
And…. Not only that but the club are already making money from the sponsorship deal which means that by wearing the shirt my child will become a walking advertisement for the sponsor!
It’s ridiculous, it’s greedy and it’s wrong.
*Steps down off soap box*
What do you think?
