When England last launched their away shirt, Umbro failed miserably. Now Nike are at the helm, England expects!

The new England shirt is not due out until early next year but the promotional photo shoot took place last week whilst the England squad were together.

Nike, who bought Umbro for £285 million last year, will be hoping they can influence a better job for the release, which is ’scheduled’ for next Spring. Scheduled being the operative word, as Umbro made a complete hash of the last launch of an England shirt.

The Last Launch Fiasco

For the launch of the last England away shirt last February, Umbro set a date, sent the marketing material out, then delayed the launch, adding a ‘reveal’ date in between. Hardly what you would expect for the England national team.

Then JJB Sports, one of the major resellers of England shirts, announced that they would be reducing the size of their usual order, citing a poor design as the reason.

The badly handled campaign affected sales of what is the jewel in the crown of the Umbro brand.

This summer, when sales are at a high, Umbro’s competency at managing shirt launches was brought further into question when Everton saw their club shirt launch delayed. Industry reports suggested the quality of manufacture was in question, whilst Umbro placed the blame with logistics.

So now Umbro has the American sports giant Nike behind them, perhaps England’s next launch in Spring ‘09 will prove to be a smoother process.