Manchester Utd to open retail outlets
Manchester United Football Club has struck a deal with sports retailer Allsports to take the club’s brand into high street stores.
The Premier League club has one dedicated franchised store at Dublin Airport and a club shop at its Old Trafford home ground. It will open “shop-in-shop” concessions in three Allsports’ stores from August and plans two more standalone Manchester United shops.
The shops will sell a full range of the club’s 1,000 product lines, from branded coffee mugs to bottles of claret.
The driving force behind the Allsports deal is Man Utd merchandising director Steve Richards, who was previously managing director of Allsports. He says the deal, which was finalised before Easter, is part of a “learning process” to discover the power of the Man Utd brand.