World Cup sales bonanza

By: Leonie Barrie - 6 June 2006 16:09

Anyone for ‘Footballers Wife’ outfits, loo seats, cheerleader outfits, inflatable referee costumes, T-shirts for dogs, or kebab grills? If the more traditional flags and replica kit don’t take your fancy, there’s no shortage of other products to tempt you onto the World Cup bandwagon.

It really does seem to be a bit of a national obsession, so here are a few mores facts and figures to whet your appetite for the upcoming spending bonanza. New figures from the British Retail Consortium calculate an extra GBP1.25bn will be spent in the UK as a result of the tournament, including GBP285m in pubs, clubs and off-licences and an extra GBP124m on food and drink for every week that England remains in the tournament. Perhaps not surprisingly, this will mostly comprise beer.

Flat-screen TV sales have almost doubled compared with last year, as have sales of items such as footballs, garden-sized goalposts, sweatbands and supporters’ clothing. And if that’s not enough, other branded goods such as inflatable hands, flags, bunting, mini-fridges, mugs, bibs, dressing gowns, hats and pens are also said to be flying out of the shops.

Comments on this blog post

Worst of all is the proliferation of St George's cross flags on display on cars all over the place. Of course the people who do all the buying of these products are watching 'Big Brother' on TV and will not be reading your blog!

Andy N, United Kingdom