Is FIFA going to start selling clothes?

After the last 11 days of group stage, the New Club World Cup finally entered the "main drama" - the knockout stage. While the teams were fighting fiercely, FIFA set up a new game in another field.

A few days ago, FIFA did something that has never been done in its 121-year history: launching its own fashion brand.

Yes, FIFA is going to make clothes. The new brand is named FIFA1904, which corresponds to the year of FIFA's establishment. It is not difficult to see from the naming that FIFA is trying to give the brand more "foundation" with history.

But the biggest contrast in this series comes from its "unlike FIFA". The first batch of products are not jerseys, cultural shirts or sports outfits, but high-end items such as suits and cashmere coats.

Source: "New York Times"

Of course, FIFA1904 is not fully "built from scratch" by FIFA, but is planned with New York's trendy cultural platform VFiles. The series covers men's and women's clothing and is designed by Marcus Clayton. He has worked for brands such as Givenchy and Versace, and has previously served as the design director of the Rihanna Fenty brand. In the business model, FIFA exists as a non-profit organization and does not directly participate in the daily operation of the brand. While collecting sales royalties from it, it retains the right to approve each design to ensure that the overall style is consistent with FIFA's image.

According to the New York Times, VFiles founder Julie Anne Quay is the main promoter of the partnership brand. She is one of the owners of the Barnsley club in the English League One, and has accompanied FIFA senior officials to visit Qatar and Saudi Arabia... She found on these occasions: "(executives) always have several suits in their suitcases, and political and business activities are constantly shuttled... They are walking brands themselves."

It is precisely based on this observation that Julie proposed the idea of ​​creating a FIFA brand clothing line. At first, FIFA was hesitant and they were also negotiating cooperation with Adidas, but in the end Julie convinced FIFA to see the potential of combining trends and sports. If the potential is too empty and money is needed to speak, Julie also gave a concrete goal: "By the 2030 World Cup, this will be a brand worth $1 billion."

In just five years, it has become a brand worth billions, and FIFA, which is "sharing the share" at its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, has blossomed. At present, FIFA1904 has determined to transform VFiles's SoHo store in New York into a brand flagship store, and will set up operation centers in New York and Los Angeles, USA. Next year, they will also prepare for the first official fashion show.

Vfiles founders Julie Anne Que (left) and Leonardo Lawson

will place stores and development centers in the US market. In addition to VFiles itself being a New York brand in the United States, the United States also occupies a core position in the next few FIFA competition cycles: the 2026 Men's World Cup and the 2031 Women's World Cup will be held in the United States, and the second Club World Cup held in 2029 is also expected to continue to be held in the United States.

In other words, in the United States, the largest sports commercial market in the world, there will be three major competitions under the FIFA system in the next six years. Whether FIFA can make good use of this market will have a profound impact on their development.

At first glance, FIFA's entry into the fashion field seems to be "not doing its job properly". But if we look at the development trajectory of FIFA in the past few years, this is not an accident, but an extension of Infantino's rule.

Since taking office in 2016, FIFA Chairman Infantino has repeatedly expressed a desire to increase FIFA's revenue and make business value worthy of its global influence. So who is his comparison partner? UEFA. Although FIFA has the most popular football match resource in the world - the World Cup, it has a huge gap with UEFA in terms of commercial revenue, which makes Infantino really feel sorry for it.

In just one season of 2023-24, UEFA generated revenue of US$7.64 billion; while FIFA's revenue target for the entire four-year cycle from 2023 to 2026 is US$13 billion. Even if FIFA achieves its goal, UEFA's average annual revenue is still 2.35 times that of its FIFA.

Source: AFP

CEO determines the development direction and strategy of the company. With Infantino's "focus on making money" mentality, FIFA has made many revenue-oriented and "disguised" measures to promote the development of football. The most obvious one is the expansion of the World Cup. The 2026 men's football team, the US-Canada-Mexico World Cup and the 2031 women's football team, will be expanded to 48 teams respectively.

When talking about the expansion of the World Cup, Infantino said that the expansion to 48 teams would increase FIFA's revenue by 20%, bringing an additional $640 million in revenue: "This fund can then be redistributed to FIFA member associations around the world to help them develop football in their own country (regional) and give more countries the opportunity to participate in this event."

And the current Club World Cup is also one of the measures for FIFA to increase revenue. Compared with the Club World Cup before the restructuring, the New Club World Cup team expanded to 32 teams, held every four years, using the "high-end" event brand and image to exchange for more corporate sponsorship and media revenue.

In addition to the event itself, FIFA has also increased its investment in the media side in recent years, using FIFA+ streaming services to build its own broadcasting positions and content. In this Club World Cup, FIFA also cooperated with the global official broadcasting platform DAZN to connect FIFA+ into DAZN's APP and set up a separate FIFA+ content library. FIFA+ page in DAZN application

, but at the same time, world football has also shown another trend in recent years: traditional event copyright and sponsorship revenue are saturated, and opening up peripheral businesses has become an option. Against this background FIFA1904 was born, and FIFA chose to extend to cultural products. FIFA Chief Commercial Officer Romy Guy said: "We have been looking for paths to diversified development, hoping to get out of our original boundaries and fully tap the value of this brand with a history of more than 120 years."

This is not a blink of an eye. In addition to the needs of VFiles' own development, the combination of fashion brands, luxury goods and sports has become increasingly frequent in the past few years.

Not long ago, LV became Real Madrid's official travel partner, providing customized suits, suitcases, etc. to the first team. Business alliances like NBA and MLB have long become an important part of trend culture. In this context, FIFA is not satisfied with being a soccer administrative agency, but also wants to get a share of the "cultural narrative".

Of course, FIFA's cross-border high-end fashion is far less natural than it seems.

FIFA's institutional nature is a non-profit organization, and its core mission is to "develop global football". Although they also earn income through sponsorship, broadcasting and authorization, it is necessary to ask whether they jointly build brands, participate in creative approval, and earn share of money.

Source: Social Media

Looking around the world, there are currently no other large sports management agencies, and there have been attempts similar to "FIFA1904". On this basis, another question arises: How will the revenue brought by the FIFA1904 brand be used? Will it be distributed to other national associations? Or just serve FIFA's own administrative system? FIFA, which has been subjected to accusations of trust and corruption for many years, will only be questioned more about its transparency and fairness.

It is worth mentioning that when searching for FIFA1904 on the Internet, another FIFA1904 "Official Brand" product line is also available that is limited to the Korean market, mainly focusing on sports and casual clothing.

The FIFA1904 store located in South Korea has a very realistic question from the brand itself: Who is the audience of FIFA1904? At present, this series is not for fans, but for middle-class, sports business, and even high-net-worth customers. If luxury goods or fashion brands have stories and culture to tell, what can FIFA, as an administrative agency, tell? Some people even joked that the slogan of FIFA1904 should be "tailored for intriguing executives."

is neither done for fans nor is it difficult to gain a foothold in the fashion circle. FIFA1904 may easily fall into an embarrassing situation of "not being a person inside or outside". Not to mention, the competition in the entire clothing industry is extremely fierce and the cycle is long. If it has been lukewarm and sales are poor, it is not known whether FIFA and VFiles still have enough patience and resources to promote subsequent development. But at least, the competition cycle concentrated in the United States in the next few years will at least give them a lot of confidence.

After that, FIFA founded a fashion brand and did not just sell a few clothes so lacking in style. From 2016 to the present, Infantino's personal charm and ambition have long changed the way FIFA acts and are also changing the entire football world.

Although the FIFA president should not be greater than the event itself, Infantino's name is on both places in the Club World Cup trophy. As a global football governance agency, FIFA should play the role of "behind the scenes", but they choose to use fashion brands to expand their cultural influence and get ahead of the stage.

The high binding of power, business and image seems to have become the new normal for FIFA to operate. However, when the boss has issued an order to make money, do the company have other options?