As the World Cup approaches ever nearer, it’s worthwhile taking a look at this year’s kits and their suppliers. It’s no surprise that all the heavy hitters of football sponsorship are involved with this year’s World Cup kits, along with a few smaller companies trying to wedge themselves in amongst the sport’s elite outfitters. Adidas has the strongest showing, with a total of twelve national teams bearing the three stripes, including Argentina, Spain, and France. Nike trails behind with a respectable nine national teams, including Brazil, USA, and Portugal, with Puma just behind them with seven, including Ghana, Uruguay, and current world champions, Italy. Let’s take a closer look at what each sponsor is offering the 2010 World Cup finalists.

With the recent acquisition of football apparel supplier Umbro, Nike now boasts itself as the world’s largest football brand. This World Cup they not only provide their nine teams with home and away kits, but they’ve also made major steps to “green” their production lines. Each Nike jersey is made from eight recycled plastic bottles. To achieve this, Nike’s fabric suppliers gathered discarded plastic bottles from different landfills around Japan and Taiwan and melted them into a yarn material that was eventually used to make each jersey. The new process not only saves raw materials, while considerably reducing energy consumption, but also utilizes materials that would have otherwise gone to waste.

While Adidas falls short on the green factor at this year’s tournament, they can happily take pride in having the more creative designs than their counterpart. Nike’s kits tend to look very similar across the board, with each country’s specific graphics being the only separating factor. Adidas took the time to design each of their country’s home and away kits as completely different from each other. The design of each jersey reflects something specific and special about the country it represents. Fans are especially pleased with the home and away jerseys’ originality.

Puma can also boast original designs and pride in the fact that they are sponsoring the majority of Africa’s teams. While not as well known, the other kit suppliers involved include Brooks, sponsoring Chile, Joma, sponsoring Honduras, and Pirma, sponsoring Korea DPR. Over the last few months, as each supplier unveiled the kit designs for their respective countries, we now wait with even more anticipation to see them all in action at the World Cup 2010.

UPDATE – Comments from kit suppliers:
Hi Muzi

Regards,
Brett Bellinger
Marketing Director
PUMA SOUTH AFRICA

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