With the World Cup play-offs this week, Ireland can still dream of a place alongside the game\u2019s great superpowers in the USA, Canada and Mexico this summer. The knockouts may determine whether we pave the road to the World Cup in green but we are already streets ahead of our illustrious counterparts in one particular department: bringing out new football shirts.<\/p>\n
The release of new Castore home and away kits earlier this year brings the Boys in Green\u2019s tally to 20 outfield strips since 2017, significantly more than England (11), France (12), Spain (11), Argentina (15) and Brazil (12) over the same period.<\/p>\n
As they broadly stick to two-year jersey cycles, the major nations don\u2019t come close to Ireland\u2019s prolific output over the course of the past decade. The FAI have brought at least one outfield jersey to market in each of the past 10 years.<\/p>\n
According to information available on the online jersey database FootballKitArchive.com, Albania (21), Azerbaijan (19), Denmark (19) and Kosovo (19) are the only UEFA nations to rival Ireland\u2019s shirt total since 2017.<\/p>\n
In the past 10 years, Ireland have almost brought out as many new outfield shirts (20) as their last opponents Hungary and their next opponents Czechia combined (21).<\/p>\n
Near neighbours Northern Ireland (10), Scotland (11) and Wales (11) have released roughly half as many shirts as the Irish.<\/p>\n
The average number of new outfield shirts for UEFA nations since 2017 is 11.4 \u2013 a little over half Ireland\u2019s total.<\/p>\n
It would be very difficult to argue that this volume of new playing gear is actually necessary on a purely practical level. Excluding the new home and away kit, and the black third kit which was released prior to Christmas, they have released new jerseys at a rate of one for every five fixtures.<\/p>\n
In reality, the explanation for this abundance of shirts likely boils down to cold, hard cash. The FAI\u2019s financial difficulties have been well documented in recent years \u2013 towards the end of 2025 it was reported that Irish football\u2019s governing body was still around \u20ac40 million in debt.<\/p>\n
The sale of merchandise generates much-needed revenue for the Association, and releasing new gear no doubt provides a boost in this regard.<\/p>\n
The new green and white shirts are retailing at \u20ac85 for kids and \u20ac105 to \u20ac145 for adults. These prices have been criticised by supporters but the cost of the adult tops is pretty much in line with national shirts manufactured by Adidas and Nike, for example.<\/p>\n
The \u20ac85 price tag for kids is comparatively steep, however. The new England version is \u20ac75 for kids, while Northern Ireland fans can pick up a new children\u2019s jersey for around \u20ac63 (\u20ac22 cheaper).<\/p>\n
(All prices taken from nations\u2019 own official stores and correct as of March 23rd 2026.) Ireland\u2019s long-standing and unusual practice of exhibiting a front-of-shirt sponsor on replica shirts is also designed to bring in extra coin. FIFA do not allow countries to display such branding in-game and other national shirts are invariably sold to fans without it, but Ireland have gone against the grain in this regard for the better part of 40 years.<\/p>\n
Though selling this ad space might be profitable (the current deal with Sky is reportedly worth up to \u20ac8 million over four years), it doesn\u2019t seem to be all that popular with Ireland\u2019s loyal supporters. At an away fixture against Finland in 2024, two fans went viral when they were spotted wearing Ireland shirts with the Sky logo removed and the words \u2018DODGY BOX\u2019 and \u2018FIRE STICK\u2019 printed on instead, a pointed reference to devices that can be used to illegally stream paid TV networks (such as Sky).<\/p>\n
Some fans now favour vintage, retro or counterfeit gear over official merch, but sales of the new Castore jerseys could skyrocket if Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s in-form side successfully navigate the play-offs and qualify for the country\u2019s first World Cup in 24 years.<\/p>\n
21 \u2013 Albania;
\n 20 \u2013 Ireland;
\n 19 \u2013 Azerbaijan, Denmark, Kosovo;
\n 18 \u2013 Canada, USA;
\n 16 \u2013 Italy;
\n 15 \u2013 Argentina, Mexico, Morocco;
\n 14 \u2013 Georgia, Germany, Ukraine;
\n 13 \u2013 Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Japan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Slovakia;
\n 12 \u2013 Austria, Brazil, France, Gibraltar, San Marino, Senegal, Wales;
\n 11 \u2013 Australia, Czechia, England, Greece, Liechtenstein, Norway, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland;
\n 10 \u2013 Andorra, Bulgaria, Croatia, Faroe Islands, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Jamaica, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, T\u00fcrkiye;
\n 9 \u2013 Cyprus, Finland, North Macedonia;\u00a0
\n 8 \u2013 Belarus, Latvia;
\n 7 \u2013 Russia;
\n 6 \u2013 Estonia;
\n 5\u00a0\u2013 Malta;
\n 3 \u2013 Moldova.<\/p>\n
*Source: FootballKitArchive.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the World Cup play-offs this week, Ireland can still dream of a place alongside the game\u2019s great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2957,61,60,43,1842,18998],"class_list":["post-364170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-republic-of-ireland-wnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}