Everton won't be affected by the ongoing issues facing hummel's UK partner, Elite Sports Group.
This week both Southampton and Coventry City, who have hummel kit partnerships, were forced to temporarily close both their online and physical retail outlets citing 'significant operating issues' facing Elite Sports Group, with the Saints detailing their understanding of 'business and fulfilment challenges' being experienced by the third-party retailer.
Everton have a kit partnership with Danish sports manufacturer hummel, one that was extended at the start of October to run until the end of the 2023/24 season.
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But whereas Southampton, Coventry, Millwall and some other hummel clubs have direct partnerships with Hertfordshire-based Elite Sports Group, Everton have deal with major US firm Fanatics over their retail operation and have no direct link with Elite, due to their long-term Fanatics link-up.
The ECHO have been told that there will be 'no impact' on retail operations, either online or physical, as a result of any challenges that Elite are currently facing, with Elite having no direct link up with Everton in the same way that they do with some of the other UK-based hummel clubs. Southampton have since ended their partnership with Elite.
On Monday a Southampton statement read: "The club was recently made aware of significant business and fulfilment challenges being experienced by our external third-party retail partner, Elite Sports Group, who manage the online and physical retail operation of a number of clubs, including ours.
"We have been working with Elite Sports Group to fully understand what those challenges are and how we might minimise any disruption for our fans. However, following further developments today, we have taken the difficult decision to end our partnership with them.
"This decision allows us to proceed with our contingency plan, but will unfortunately result in the unavoidable closure of our online and physical stores for a short period of time."
In September of this year Elite were fined £459,000, alongside fines for JD Sports and Rangers FC, for their part in what was found by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to be the price fixing of Rangers-branded kits and other clothing items from September 2018 to July 2019. JD Sports were fined £1.485m and Rangers £225,000.
Attempts by the ECHO to contact Elite Sports went unanswered with the company's press email address no longer accepting external emails.
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