Why it's time for fans to campaign against shirt prices

It is five years since I set foot in the Chelsea Megastore, and five years since I parted with any cash in there. Glinting at me, on a special rail just inside the entrance, was a new line never previously featured: a blue home strip with a lone golden star above the badge.

I think it was about £40 and, price per wear (it's my gym kit these days), that's a small number of pence. Back then, it was a special line: outside of the recently forgotten undertaking to change kits only once every couple of seasons.

The recent launch of Chelsea's first kit of a 15-year Nike association was generally welcomed by fans. The simple blue design was pleasing, and the royal shade of the thing seemed to show company execs had listened to fans (the slightly lighter shade of recent years showed that Adidas never really got how a Chelsea shirt should look).

But that price...

Via official club channels, it was £59.95 for a 'Stadium Home' shirt. And, for the first time the two-tier pricing much derided of the latest England kit launch, a 'Vapor Match Home' shirt for £89.95. The reasoning behind the £30 difference is yet to be adequately explained to me and, unless you are going to run around in it at an elite level for 90 +4 minutes, I suspect the extra £30 equates to little more than a 'mug tax'.

Nobody has to buy a replica shirt. Indeed, at Chelsea, few regular matchgoing fans do. I opened with that story about the 2012 Champions League kit (a shirt by the way, never worn in a competitive game by the players) because it is a common tale: for many, it was the only shirt in recent memory they've coughed for. But for kids, or for those based further afield, owning a shirt plays a big part in the sense of belonging as a fan.

Nike, though often cited as an example of the most avaricious form of capitalism, are in truth little different to other mega brands in the world of kit manufacture. They like to get a bit more bang for their buck than main rivals Adidas, but in the pricing of replica shirts it is more or less a matter of parity. And, lest we forget, Chelsea as a club will benefit to the tune of £900m from that tie-in over the course of the next 15 years – money which will improve the team, possibly pay towards a new stadium, and effectively subsidise every ticket in the ground.

But £90 for a football shirt?

Belatedly, football seems to have at least attempted to display some form of social conscience in recent seasons. Though the headline aim of the 'Twenty's Plenty' campaign was never realised, the cause did achieve a certain degree of traction with the establishment of a £30 cap on ticket prices for travelling fans at each of the Premier League's 20 grounds.

The reality of football's current finances is that those tickets could be given away for nought, due to the gold ingots being delivered to the door of every club by the TV broadcasters each season. But football has no interest in giving stuff away for free: the brand of the Premier League is all about quality, aspiration, and... yes... avarice. Yet, in this world of pester power, where kids form a bond for life with a club that they will bankroll for decades to come, is there really any need for that level of greed?

Much of the heat Nike has borne over years has come from their apparent desperation to cut costs: by employing sweatshops, and adopting working practices unpalatable to many. Likewise, their kits can be obtained for less than those headline prices, though that will require the buyer to make a value judgement about the much criticised working practices at Sports Direct. There is evidence that both Nike and Sports Direct have improved their ethical game in recent years – though campaigners still say both have some way to go.

But for a company like Nike, which latest figures showed to be turning over $8.2bn a quarter, is it really necessary to charge £90 for a shirt?

If football can agree it should not cost more than £30 to see your team on the road, perhaps it should agree a similar figure for what it should cost to wear their replica strip while doing it.

Though with the big sports brands bankrolling the game, that is an aspiration we may all have to wait a very long while to be realised.