Keeping kit out of supermarkets

By Anthony Reuben
Business reporter, BBC News

Shirt makers discouraging supermarket sales

Manufacturers of replica football shirts have been taking steps to discourage supermarkets from stocking their products, the BBC has discovered.

Nike uses a 12-point list of criteria that prospective retailers must comply with and which supermarkets would find it very difficult to conform to.

Asda says that other major suppliers have used similar criteria.

Nike defended its policy, saying it was designed to ensure the correct retail environment for its products.

The criteria include allocating specially trained staff to the Nike products and not placing them near unrelated items.

"In the past, the likes of Umbro, Nike, Adidas, Reebok, did not want to sell to us direct so they did everything they could not to sell to us on a direct basis," Paul Crier, general manager for toys and sporting goods at Asda told BBC News.

Nike issued a statement defending its criteria.

"Nike markets its products 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," the company said in a statement.

"Retailers meeting the relevant minimum standards can purchase the relevant Nike products, including football shirts," it added.

Luxury products

Some manufacturers are allowed to use restrictions on retailers, which are known as selected distribution networks.

A good example would be a company that makes complicated hi-fi equipment, which might require qualified staff to be on hand to deal with customers' questions.

Luxury products, such as expensive perfumes, are also allowed to impose such rules.

"Selective distribution is designed to cover high-value or complex products where restrictions will ultimately benefit consumers," says Eddie Powell, an intellectual property partner at the law firm Fladgate Fielder.

"I would be surprised if replica football kit fell into this description."

New deal

But the tradition of kit suppliers not dealing directly with supermarkets has just been broken.

Asda will shortly announce that it has done a deal with Diadora, which makes Scotland international shirts, to sell the kit in its Scottish stores.

Asda also said it planned to approach Nike, Adidas and Umbro and ask them if they would be prepared to supply the supermarket chain in the future.

"It's hoped that our Diadora deal will mean other big brands will start to supply us as well," said Asda's Paul Crier.