Football kit suppliers: how clubs should buy teamwear
Kit is most clubs' second-biggest annual purchase after pitch hire, and the market is deliberately confusing: brands sell through dealers, dealers run club shops, and half the prices are "get a quote". Here's the structure of the market, the prices we could verify, and the questions that save money.
Short answer
Cheapest full-squad route (verified): package bundles — Pendle's 7-kit + goalkeeper bundles run £105–£315 for adults with badge, sponsor and numbers included; 14+1 bundles up to £639 at the top design tier.
Cheapest custom route (verified): Avec Sport sublimated kit from £20.20 per player, personalisation included, no minimum order — £323 for a squad of 16.
Branded catalogue kit: from about £39 per player (Joma entry range at dealer pricing) before printing.
The three kinds of supplier
- Brands with teamwear programmes — Joma, Macron, Errea, Stanno/Hummel and the big sportswear names. In the UK they mostly sell through dealers rather than direct; Macron is the exception with its own "Sports Hub" stores doing bespoke club designs, and Errea runs a club affiliation scheme (TOP TEAM). You buy the catalogue look and multi-season availability.
- Multi-brand teamwear dealers — Kitlocker, Pendle, Direct Soccer, Pro:Direct Teamsport. They add the services clubs actually need: printing, club shops, bulk pricing, loyalty schemes.
- Custom sublimation specialists — Avec Sport, Surridge. Your design, printed into the fabric, usually with low or no minimum order. Nobody else on the pitch has your kit; the trade-off is a 2–3 week lead time and no off-the-shelf restock.
The budget math for a squad of 16
Built only from prices we verified on supplier pages; estimates are labeled.
| Route | What you get | Cost for 16 | Arithmetic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pendle bundle, entry design | 14 kits + 1 GK kit bundle (badge, sponsor, numbers included) + 2 extra kits | ~£211 | £185 bundle + 2 × ~£13 (extras estimated pro-rata — confirm per-kit add-on price) |
| Avec custom sublimated | Fully custom design, names, numbers, crest and sponsor included, no MOQ | ~£323 | 16 × £20.20 ("from" price — actual spec may cost more) |
| Joma catalogue via dealer | Eco Supernova shirt+shorts+socks per player, before printing | ~£628 + printing | 16 × £39.22 (Pro Soccer UK dealer price) |
| Pendle bundle, top design tier | 14+1 bundle at the top of Pendle's published adult range + 2 extras | ~£730 | £639 + 2 × ~£46 (extras estimated pro-rata) |
The spread is the story: the same squad costs £211 or £730 depending on route and design tier, and the cheap end already includes printing while the branded route charges it on top. If your club runs ten teams, that spread is a £5,000-a-season decision.
"From" prices are entry points — a specific colourway, larger sizes or extra logos move the number. Get the itemised quote in writing, including printing per item, before comparing suppliers.
Club shops: make parents do the ordering
The most underrated development in grassroots kit is the supplier-hosted club shop: an online storefront in your club's branding where parents and players order (and pay for) their own kit, while the kit secretary keeps a managers' section for bulk buys. No more collecting sizes in a WhatsApp thread, no more fronting £2,000 on the club card.
Pendle's version — verified directly — is free to set up, serves 1,800+ clubs, has no minimum order for parent purchases, and despatches printed garments within 2 working days. Kitlocker and Pro:Direct run comparable club-shop/kit-builder propositions (we couldn't verify their terms directly — their pricing pages weren't retrievable when we checked — so ask them the same questions and compare in writing). Direct Soccer adds a loyalty angle: its Direct Rewards scheme reportedly returns a £25 voucher per £500 spent, though its site blocked our verification fetch, so confirm the current terms with them.
Supplier notes
| Supplier | Type | Verified pricing | Lead time | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pendle Sportswear | Dealer / own-range bundles | Kids bundles £79–£315; adult £105–£639 (7+1 to 14+1 kits, printing included) | Despatch in 2 working days | Free club shops, no minimum on parent orders; strongest published pricing in the market |
| Avec Sport | Custom sublimation | From £20.20/player incl. personalisation; items from £6.45 | 2–3 weeks (custom) | Explicit no-minimum-order policy — rare and useful for single teams |
| Joma (via UK dealers) | Brand catalogue | Full kit sets from £39.22/player (Pro Soccer UK) | Not published | Budget-to-mid brand with wide dealer availability; printing costs sit with the dealer |
| Macron (Sports Hubs) | Brand, bespoke designs | Not published — via regional hub quote | Not published | The bespoke-design route without going full sublimation-specialist; expect a sales process |
| Errea | Brand + club scheme | Not published | Free 24h shipping on stock orders over €59.99 (own UK store) | TOP TEAM club affiliation programme exists; eligibility terms not published — ask directly |
| Kitlocker · Direct Soccer · Pro:Direct Teamsport | Multi-brand dealers | Not verifiable on our check (pages blocked/unretrievable) | Direct Soccer: reportedly ~7–10 working days customised | All three run club-shop or kit-builder models across Nike/adidas/Puma/Joma catalogues — get written quotes and compare against Pendle's published numbers |
Seven questions to ask before you order
- Is printing in the price? Badge, sponsor, numbers, initials — per item, per print. This is where a cheap shirt becomes an expensive one.
- How long is this range guaranteed? If a design is discontinued next summer, next season's new signings can't match the squad. No brand we checked publishes a guarantee — which is exactly why you should get it in writing from the dealer.
- What's the real lead time in August? Published turnarounds are off-peak. Order spring for autumn.
- Is there a minimum order — and a minimum for re-orders? One replacement shirt in November matters more than the launch order.
- Can you run our club shop, and what does it cost? Free at Pendle; terms vary elsewhere. Shifts admin and cashflow off your volunteers.
- What discount or rebate applies at our volume? Loyalty vouchers, club discounts and season packages exist across the dealers but are rarely on the website. Ask, in writing.
- Who owns the design? For custom sublimated kit: can you take your design to another printer next season, or is it locked to the supplier?
FAQ
Is custom kit more expensive than branded kit?
Counterintuitively, often not. Avec's verified from-£20.20 per player including personalisation undercuts branded catalogue kit once you add printing to the ~£39 branded base price. The custom trade-offs are lead time and restock dependency, not price.
What should a youth team's kit cost?
Verified kids bundles start at £79 for 7 kits + GK kit with printing included (Pendle's entry designs) — roughly £10 a player. Anyone quoting several times that for entry-level youth kit should be asked what specifically justifies it.
How do clubs get free or sponsored kit?
Three routes: a shirt sponsor covers the kit cost (see our sponsorship pricing guide); dealer loyalty schemes effectively rebate a percentage of spend; and brands occasionally sponsor selected clubs directly with bespoke designs — Macron does this — but that's won, not applied for.
Related on Football Business Desk
Sources
Checked 2 September 2026. We only print numbers we could fetch from a supplier's own page; where a site blocked verification, the text says so.
- Pendle Sportswear — package deals and club shops
- Avec Sport — team kits
- Pro Soccer UK — Joma kit set pricing
- Errea — sports clubs / TOP TEAM
- Macron — Sports Hub model
No paid placements in this guide; if that ever changes, placements will be labeled.