The Top 10 Best-Selling 2021 Football Kits Statistics Is Completely Fake News

A recent study of South American sports agency Euromerica Sport Marketing "has revealed" which 10 European clubs sold the most jerseys in 2021. However, even though the data is used by many recognized media, it is simply false. Thanks to La Casaca for the heads-up.

Euromerica Sport Marketing are a small marketing agency founded by Gerardo Molina. They have no deals with any famous clubs. Their main reorganization seems to be that they "are certified by FIFA".

Gerardo Molina - founder of Euromerica Sport Marketing

Euromerica Sport Marketing do not reveal where their data is from or how they gathered it.

100% Untrustable: Top 10 Best Selling Kits In 2021

According to Euromerica, Bayern sold 3.25m shirts in 2021 - 200,000 more than any other club. While Bayern München and all other clubs usually do not announce the number of shirts they have sold, it is safe to assume all numbers are way too high, and wrong.

In the 2013-14 season, Bayern reached record sale. The Bavarians sold 1.3 million kits, as officially revealed by board member Andreas Jung. It was the season after the 2013 UEFA Champions League triumph, and it seems impossible that they sold three times as much just seven years later. In fact, we doubt that they sold more jerseys than in 2013-2014.

Official data from Bayern confirm that the sales of merchandising (this includes kits) did not rise but fall slightly since 2014. In 2014, Bayern had merchandising incomes of 105,2 Millionen Euro. In 2021, they had merchandising incomes of 100,3 Mio. Euro.

Bayern's numbers are way too high, and the same applies to all other teams. The order of the ranking seems to be diced. We highly doubt PSG sold fewer kits than Juventus in 2021, and that Bayern sold 3x more kits than PSG.

German marketing expert Dr. Peter Rohlmann from PR Marketing released a much more plausible ranking in 2016.

The untrustworthy Euromerica agency also released false statistics for Argentinian clubs and national teams.

"Best Selling National Team" Kits in 2021 - Ranking Also Completely Wrong

According to the 2021 Euromerica National Team Ranking, which was published by many newspapers including Marca, Germany sold 3.234 million jerseys - this would be around 1 million more than they sold in 2014, the year when Germany won the World Cup.

There are no numbers of how many kits Germany sold in 2021, but we are sure it is less than in 2014. Indeed, Germany's Euro 2020 kits have been not selling well at all, with the German Football Federation giving away shirts for free.

England would have been the top team with 3.75 million kit sales in 2021. Spain would have sold an incredible 2,890 million.

"Best Selling Argentinian Team" Kits in 2020-2021 - Numbers Much Too High

According to the Euromerica Argentinian Team Ranking from last year, both Boca and River sold approximately 2 million jerseys in 12 months. This would be more than PSG, Chelsea, and other top clubs (according to the same false numbers of the same agency).

If Boca and River would sell 2 million kits per year, they would surely get more than 10 million USD from Adidas per year. A simple sample calculation confirms that the numbers must be way to high.

Assuming River make 15 USD from each kit sold, they would earn 15 million USD from kit sales alone. And there is a lot of other gear except kits, meaning that it would be extremly lucrative for Adidas and River. With River not being popular outside Argentina, 5% of the country's inhabitants would buy a kit every year...

Euromerica also say Messi sold 1.2 million kits in 2021 alone, and Lewandowski 970,000. So there must be around 1 million people who bought a Lewandowski kit last year...

All in all, it appears that everything from Euromerica Sport Marketing is simply wrong. Any newspaper or other source should not use the data, even though it will get clicks, likes, and retweets.

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