Fake Shirts.... Why buy authentic?

With the Authentic Barcelona 2020/21 shirt retailing for £99.99+ it's no wonder the fake football shirt market is on the rise! I wanted to take a look at some of the things to think about before buying counterfeit jerseys.

         Newcastle United shirts being made, Adidas Factory, 1995
        (Picture source 1982.culture on Twitter)

Ethics
Do we have a moral responsibility to ensure the people we buy things from, look after their workers? pay their taxes? Is that any of our business?

What about the argument that counterfeiting leads to the exploitation of workers in so-called sweat shops?
Arguably, the same goes for violating the intellectual property rights of the designer/brand Most people wouldn't see it as their moral obligation to look after the brands but what about supporting the football club itself! buying fake means they get nothing.  

Pakistan Sweatshop, producing Nike Footballs, 1995

Quality
Quite often a counterfeit shirt on first wear will look great quality and hard to tell the difference between it and the authentic version but after the first wash it is common for the material of the shirt to shrink and this can make the material look wavy around the badges and it doesn't fit properly anymore.

Authentic Brand's such have quality control and materials are pre washed/shrunk before being turned into shirts. These corners are always cut with fakes as it is all about quantity over quality.

How can you help stop fake shirt sellers!?
All you have to do is type "Football Shirt" into eBay and most of the time the first results will always be fake shirts so the first thing you can do is report the shirt, most selling platforms like eBay will have a report feature and they are usually pretty fast at getting stuff deleted but with the amount of fakes about and all the new selling platforms this is only really a temporary annoyance for the sellers! the best thing you can do is report them to trading standards and give as much details as you can.