As Canada’s World Cup run drives demand, Vancouver soccer shops are selling out of national-team jerseys and warning buyers against fakes
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For weeks, boxes of Canada jerseys that had been ordered a year ago sat largely untouched in some of Vancouver’s soccer shops.
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A few merchants quietly wondered whether they’d ordered too many.
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Then the World Cup got underway — and the shirts started flying off the shelves.
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Craig Burnham, the owner of Sportstown Soccer in Richmond, took a gamble and ordered about 120 Canada jerseys for this tournament — a significant amount for a small business like his, and far more than he stocked in 2022 for a previous World Cup.
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As of Friday, all he had left were three kids’ sizes and a single women’s jersey.
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“It was a big risk, but thankfully, it sold through,” he said.
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Burnham said the lead-up was so quiet that he and other shop owners were comparing notes, wondering whether anyone would buy the kit they’d committed to a year in advance.
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“There was no real driving excitement about it,” he said. “And then it’s like, all of a sudden, the city woke up.”
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He wasn’t the only one caught in the rush.
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At North America Sports on East Hastings Street, owner Ferruccio Susin said Canada jersey sales have jumped up 10 times over a normal stretch.
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He hired two extra staff about a month before the tournament began just to keep up.
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“The World Cup coming to Canada has been a blessing,” Susin said. “Everybody has the soccer fever this summer here in Vancouver.”
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Susin, whose shop has been operating for nearly 50 years, said he’s had to scramble for stock as Nike struggles to keep pace. Buyers have spanned all demographics: teenagers to people in their 60s, men and women, longtime fans and casual ones.
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He said demand has been split fairly even between the red home jersey, with its embossed Maple Leaf, and the new black alternative with its ice-inspired design.
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Canada will wear black on Sunday in its first Cup knockout match. Black is the colour they’ve worn for some pretty big moments, including their 6-0 drubbing of Qatar in Vancouver last week.
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The frenzy has reached stores that don’t usually sell soccer gear at all. Ben Ludwig, who owns Big League Sports Excellence in Kitsilano, told Postmedia that he opened an hour early one day this week to a lineup at the door.
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“It’s well-exceeded what I expected. I can’t keep the product on the shelves,” Ludwig said. “It’s nuts. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”
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He also stocked the shop with Argentina, Mexico, Spain and Japan jerseys. Canada, he said, is outselling all of them combined, 10 to one.
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For Burnham, the boom has come with a catch: Counterfeit jerseys sold online and through social media, often for about a third of the roughly $135 retail price. He said the knock-offs are pulling sales away from legitimate shops.
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The problem has drawn the attention of police and major brands. In early June, Toronto police announced what they called the largest seizure of counterfeit soccer jerseys in Canadian history — about 16,000 shirts pulled from a Mississauga warehouse, with two men charged.
