It’s been a challenging few years for most grassroots teams and a key feature of this has been an overall decline in the availability of football kits. In 2020, several large suppliers (such as our original supplier Nike) changed their models, importing goods on a less frequent basis. Consequently, the club also changed its approach and made the move to Hummel who were offering more timely distribution into the UK. This was successful until 2022, when Hummel’s UK distributor Elite Sports Group succumbed to the ever-growing financial crisis and went into administration, preventing grassroots clubs from further utilising this brand.
Then in preparation for the 2023-2024 season the club announced a brand-new relationship with Joma as our suppliers based on their distribution times and overall range of kits and accessories. The Joma relationship was brought in alongside a two-season plan to bring the club back into the community, with a new badge and most importantly a change of name to Merley Football Club.
It's with huge thanks to the sponsors and contributions made by parents and players that we have almost finished this work and have now circulated over 350 brand new home kits to our players and removed the dependency on handing down old kits to new teams – the same funding has also seen many teams take advantage of our new Hoodies, Zip Up’s and Raincoats. It’s also worth noting that for safeguarding reasons, the club have funded new coaching kits to over 70 managers, coaches and volunteers since September 2023.
However, despite these successes, the club have been unable to provide our players with their brand-new Merley Football Club training kits. For several reasons, the club initially made a difficult decision in April 2024 to postpone the order of training kits until the start of the 2024-2025 season. Sadly, the club are now facing challenges with distribution, which is a direct impact of Joma’s continued popularity in the market, especially the demand for the specific kit we decided to utilise in 2023 – this has affected the supply of some items, including our brand-new training kits to the UK (which we anticipate will be at least January 2025).
The training kits are really important to the club, and we would like to reassure everyone that the team are doing everything to get these to the players as soon as possible. The club are also working on potential improvements to the overall process of purchasing kits and accessories, which we hope will benefit everyone.
The club thank you for your patience and will make a further announcement in December 2024.
