Sales of World Cup sportswear run wild; Spain's team mainly reigns

With the FIFA 2010 World Cup South Africa just around the corner, soccer fans are poring over online stores proffering pirated sportswear to buy their favorite country's gear.

Pirated shirts costing about 50 yuan are the biggest hit, sellers said.

According to statistics from major online shopping sites, through Sunday, more than 100,000 World Cup team shirts worth 5 million yuan have been sold online, Mirror Evening News reported.

Pirated shirts of Spain top the 10 best-seller list, with 17,430 sold. Germany, England, France, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands and Japan follow, in order of popularity.

Cai Haibing, a vendor from Guangzhou province who sold 590 shirts of the national team of Argentina in May alone on Taobao.com, said he had a bunch of orders from companies and organizations that organize soccer games for amateur players to celebrate the upcoming tournament, a sporting event that rivals the Olympics in popularity.

His shirts cost only 16 yuan each. For another 8 yuan, customers can also have their favorite player's name and number printed on the shirt.

"For those who'd like to wear the shirts when playing soccer themselves, the pirated ones are obviously the better choice," Cai said. "After all, who is willing to have their expensive copyright shirts dragged or scraped on the green field?"

Liu Xiaoming, 28, told METRO that "high quality" shirts typically sell for 80 to 150 yuan online. They are also very popular among his soccer friends. 

                                                                                                  Source:China Daily