One Season Wonders: 4 Short-Lived Kit Deals You May Not Know About
Most kit fans will have some knowledge and memory of a club's history of technical sponsors, but here are a few short term deals that you may not have known about.
One Season Wonders: Short-Lived Kit Deals
The chances are that you could name the technical sponsor of quite a few different football clubs, even ones yous don't support or follow. You probably even remember some of their older kits from different brands. The deals between clubs and their technical sponsor usually run for multiple years, giving the brands time to leave their mark and become associated with the club in the minds of the spectators. Sometimes however, short term deals crop up. Making a club's kit for one season leaves little time for exposure, and a few years down the line these partnerships can easily be forgotten. Due to their short duration, there generally aren't too many of these shirts in circulation nowadays. Here are a few of those cases that you may not have known about, or maybe you've forgotten about them entirely.
Marseille - Reebok 94-95 and Mizuno 95-96
Marseille had a long history with Adidas, but their partnership was interrupted for two seasons in the mid 90s upon OM's forced relegation to Ligue 2 after a bribery scandal. Reebok took the reigns for the first season, before Mizuno came in for the 95-96 campaign, creating both a v neck and collared version of the home shirt. Adidas returned in the summer of 1996 when promotion back to Ligue 1 was secured.
Fiorentina - Diadora 00-01, Mizuno 01-02, Puma 02-03
Fiorentina wore Diadora jerseys in 00-01, followed by a year with Mizuno. They were playing in Serie A at that stage, and photos of the likes of Rui Costa and Adriano sporting those shirts have done the rounds plenty on social media. The club was mired in financial difficulty in the 2000s and as a result ceased to exist in 2002, before restarting life in Serie C2, Italy's fourth tier.
For that campaign, they wore Puma shirts which bore just a red fleur de lis symbol in lace of their usual crest. Well out of the spotlight that year and with all their big players (except for Angelo Di Livio) having jumped ship, their Puma kits didn't really get the chance to catch the eye.
Fulham - Airness 06-07
Fulham were well established in the Premier League by the mid 2000s, but after a few years with Puma they partnered with young French brand Airness, for whom it was the first venture into the English game. Airness had been making kits for teams like Auxerre, Lille, Nantes and Rennes, and in 2006 Fulham received their own set of jerseys with the same recognisable template.
The 06-07 period was their peak as they sponsored 7 clubs, before things gradually went downhill from there on out, although they still made Mali's kits at AFCON 2022.
Napoli - Legea 03-04
20 odd years ago, Napoli's state of affairs was very different to today. Another club heavily burdened by financial woes, the 03-04 season was their third consecutive campaign in Serie B. They didn't boast the talent and star names of today's squad, but they did have Christian Vieri's brother, Max, in their ranks. They suffered relegation to Serie C1 that season, while wearing kits from local brand Legea, whose sole season with i Partenopei was one to forget. They were actually rumoured to take over again from Kappa before EA7 got the gig a couple of years ago, although they did provide Napoli's youth teams with kits last season.
How many of these partnerships did you already know about? Can you think of any more short term partnerships that are often forgotten? Let us know in the comments.
