FC Zurich was the first Swiss club, in 1976, to place advertising on its players’ shirts. The first sponsor was emblazoned on the Zurich players’ chests at Köbi Kuhn’s last championship game in 1977.
FCZ Museum

HEATED DEBATE OVER ADVERTISING ON FOOTBALL SHIRTS

Advertising has become an integral part of football. Every possible surface in a stadium is plastered with a sponsor’s logo; the most sought-after place, of course, is on the front of the players’ shirts. However, there was initially resistance to this development. In the 1950s superstar Obdulio Varela, captain of Uruguay’s national team, refused to run out for his club, Peñarol Montevideo, in a jersey with advertising slogans on it: ‘They used to drag us blacks around by rings in our noses. Those days are gone.’

In Switzerland, it was much longer before clubs discovered this source of income. The first to embrace the trend was FC Zurich in 1976, when players advertised a photographic film manufacturer on their shirts. FC Basel, the Young Boys and Lausanne followed suit shortly afterwards. For Schweizer Fernsehen, the Swiss television broadcaster, this was not acceptable. The provider railed against the new form of advertising, because it meant companies would receive a platform without paying for it. SRG promptly stopped covering matches involving the clubs it criticised. This in turn caused outrage among fans, particularly as even more space was given over to ‘unpaid’ advertising in broadcasts of skiing events and Formula 1 racing. The boycott didn’t last long – and the two-year trial with jersey sponsors arranged by the Football Association transitioned seamlessly into a permanent situation.

Football shirt advertising was equally contentious in Germany. Eintracht Braunschweig circumvented the ban in force by immediately adopting the symbol of alcohol manufacturer Jägermeister as its club logo. Even after this type of advertising was allowed, some newspapers still blacked out audacious photos of players with advertising on their jerseys.

Tempi passati: Manchester United currently receives the record sum of 80 million francs a year from a car manufacturer in return for space on the team’s jersey, which is also worn by millions of fans across the globe – who thus also become walking advertisements.

Rachel Huber

A pioneer with a dark side