Football fans warned against the health risks of buying counterfeit kits

Martin Macdonald

• 27 Nov 2025 09:31 CST
• 4 min read

Nieuws

Football fans have again been warned of the health risks of purchasing counterfeit or 'fake' football kits.

The prices of official football kits sold by clubs and official merchandise stores has soared in recent years. It costs, at the very least, £60 to purchase a club kit and if you want a name and number on the back and badges on the sleeves, the price can rise to up to £120.

That las led to a craze of purchasing counterfeit kits from abroad, with Chinese manufacturers usually the sellers.

These can cost as little as £15 and that includes shipping from China.

But, the tools and materials used to make these counterfeit kits are not known and so cannot be regulated, which presents a risks to buyers.

"We just don't know what's in these kits - they could pose a health risk," says Louise Baxter-Scott from Trading Standards.

"They are poorly made but look legitimate, and the pressure of Christmas, plus the increase in cost of living creates a greater consumer vulnerability and pushes people towards a cheaper alternative."

Chloe Long, deputy director general at the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, insists that the kits could cause rashes.

"Wearing that strip could cause irritation," she says. "It could even cause more significant problems - particularly if harmful toxins or dyes are used to manufacture those products. It's very difficult to know retrospectively what's been put into the product, but you can see in some instances that they could be harmful.

"And they don't follow any regulations. They're not bound by the same legalities and regulations the genuine manufacturers are."

Long claims that the foreign manufacturers only care about sales and don't care about using harmful chemicals.

What's the difference between a fake football shirt and a real one? 🤔 👕

Chloe Long, deputy director general at the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, explains. pic.twitter.com/YyUd8jVbCg

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) November 27, 2025

"Whatever they can get their hands on to make this look as close to the real thing as possible, they will do that," she adds.

"So you don't know what could happen when you put that in the washing machine with other products and, particularly if you're buying it for children, this is just not a risk that you should be taking."

Why fans buy counterfeit football kits

The BBC asked numerous fans why they have taken to purchasing counterfeit kits instead of real ones.

"It's so easy to," said Finn, a mid-20s Liverpool fan. "Why would you spend £120 when you could get it for £20-25? And especially for people of my age group that maybe don't have that much money."

A unnamed Dubliner, who travelled to a Premier League match, said: "If you buy the original brands, I think we're up to £70-£80 now even for a kids one.

"But we had a bad experience recently [with a fake] in terms of the quality. It lasted a day."

It is not illegal to purchase fake kits in the UK, but it is illegal to sell them.

Kit designer Rob Warner, who previously worked for Puma and Umbro, says it costs around £10 to make a replica kit but the profits from the sale price are spread around numerous parties.

"The cost of making a product is more than the constituent parts," he says.

"You wouldn't walk into a restaurant and order a steak and chips and say: 'I'm not paying £20 for that - I could get a steak for £4 from the supermarket.' You're paying for the environment, you're paying for the chef.

"It's a similar sort of sort of thing with football kits.

"It can be hard, even for professional designers, to tell the difference. There are key things to look out for, but to all intents and purposes, your average consumer wouldn't notice.

"Then, with the price [of genuine kits] just continually going up every year... as much as I can present reasons why people shouldn't buy them, I can also understand why they do."

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