History of Football Kits Continued
Eighties (1980-1989)
Clubs began to exploit the potential revenue from selling football shirt sponsorship once Hibernian and Liverpool broke the mould. The BBC and ITV refused to broadcast football matches featuring branded football shirts, forcing clubs to remove sponsors’ logos when their games were being filmed and broadcast.
In 1983 TV companies finally allowed sponsored football shirts to be broadcast. This immediately increased the value of a sponsorship deal with a club, as it would feature regularly on BBC’s Match of the Day or on ITV football shows. Football League regulations restricted the size of logos to a maximum of 81cm squared, but for televised football matches they had to be half this size.
English and Scottish football Leagues have resisted the trend seen in some countries to permit virtually unlimited advertising on player’s football kit.
Many football clubs began to add a third colour to their football kits. For example Liverpool had introduced yellow to their kit in 1979, a pale grey trim in the mid 80’s and then a dark green.
The football kit monopoly previously enjoyed by Umbro and Bukta was now broken by a new breed of football kit manufacturers such as Hummel, Le Coq Sportif, Patrick and Hobotts and Adidas.
More intricate designs such as shadow stripes and pin stripes were added to football kits ever since Tottenham Hotpsur revealed their new kit in 1982.
Towards the end of the 80’s football shirts became more generously cut as new lightweight fabrics became available. Improvements in kit production allowed for intricate and detailed designs to be woven or printed into the fabric itself.
To continue the history of football kits please see the nineties (1990-1999).