The English Premier League is the most supported football league around the globe, it is more popular that the Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A or the German Bundesliga. Top flight games involving some of the best loved clubs such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea are watched by supporters around the world, television rights to these matches are expected to be worth in excess of £5bn for the new season. With the summer break well under way, and hot transfer gossip emerging daily, supporters attentions are being drawn to the launches of the new kits that their favourite players will be wearing on the pitch next season.Saturday 17th August 2013 will see the kick off of the 22nd annual Premier League competition, the fixture list for all of the seasons games is due to be announced in the coming week. The Premier League replaced the Football League First Division as the top flight of English football in 1992, it is a competition between the top twenty football teams in England, each season the bottom three clubs are relegated to make way for three teams from the Football League Championship to be promoted, the new additions to this seasons competition are Cardiff City, Hull City and Crystal Palace.
During recent years there has been a growing level of discontent amongst some fan groups regarding the number of new shirts that their favourite teams launch each season. In 2000 the Premier League Charter stated that clubs would keep their replica kits for two seasons, it was often the case that many clubs would alternate between releasing new home and away strips. However, increasingly this has not been the case with many clubs releasing home, away and sometimes change shirts every year. With the addition of some clubs having specially designed Champions League or European strips the cost burden of purchasing these shirts is becoming troublesome for some fan groups.
Many of the new Premier League kits have already gone on sale, the Manchester United home shirt replicates a stylish 'Mancunian' polo shirt with a black collar in contrast to the red shirt. The Chelsea home strip was released by Adidas during an extravagant advertising campaign utilising blue paint featuring the slogan "its blue, what else matters?' Despite previous claims that they would not release new shirts yearly, Warrior have released images for both the new home and away Liverpool strips with rumours of a third design as well. Manchester City will be stepping out in brand new Nike shirts this season after ending their previous deal with Umbro. There is no news so far regarding a new look for Arsenal however, they have signed a deal with Puma that is believed to start from next season. Arsenal are one of the few teams that have consistently kept the same home shirt for two seasons, since the current shirt was only released last year it is unlikely to change again in the coming weeks.
Football is big business, but is the burden of so many new shirts fair to loyal supporters?
What do you think of the strips the players will play in during the 2013-14 season?
Order your new Premier League kits from Soccerbox and show support for your favourite team.
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