It’s easy to look at Manchester United’s 25 global partners and quickly ask: why on earth do they need that many?
Financially, there’s an obvious incentive for the club. For the brand, there’s widespread and global awareness of its product.
But what if there’s a little more to the story. Take Maui Jim, United’s official vision partner. While it’s easy to think United will make a partner of any human body part, it turns out there is a tactical advantage to this deal.
In the Premier League, and we’re talking about the highest level in football, marginal gains make a difference. And anything that can be done to improve, or preserve, eyesight is taken extremely seriously.
Let’s face it, if you can spot an unbelievable pass, or an incoming opponent with a wider field of vision, why wouldn’t a club try to exploit that. Dennis Irwin, seven-time Premier League winner at United reveals eye tests were done all the time on the players.
“[It’s] very important, you’ve got to have good eyesight, obviously,” he says. “We had different things on the board - reaction, fake tests.”
Club legend Bryan Robson adds: “They can control your eyes, and when I say that I mean give you an exercise to improve your vision.How good is your vision straight ahead or to the right?
“They can tell if your vision is stronger on one side or the other. They can help the weaker side and make you a better player.”
Players like Paul Scholes and David Beckham would often produce passes noone else could see. Had they had poor vision in reality this would have been a much tougher task. Someone who played with both is Wes Brown. And he reveals even as a teenager his sight was being trained at United.
“I was 18 and thought my eyesight was brilliant until I started taking tests,” he says. “Where I played right-back, we realised that anything to the left was impeccable but looking to my right, where I never looked, wasn’t good at all. Doing exercises to help that shows there’s always ways you can improve.”
And while having exemplary eyesight is something that’s rather obviously needed in football, preserving it is even more important. Professor Shelby Temple, a visual neuroscientist, believes looking after your eyes is just as important as maintaining a healthy diet.
“Taking care of a person’s eye health is just as important as taking care of any other part of their physical health,” Prof Shelby Temple. “Eye health is often something we take for granted and don’t think about until there is an issue, but good vision is so important in our daily lives, particularly for professional athletes.
“The technology and testing available has advanced over the years, and information we can get from tests like the MP-eye by Azul Optics can have a real impact on how we manage lifestyle to maintain and even improve our visual performance, which can have a significant effect on an athlete’s overall career.
“Small, simple changes, like consistently wearing good quality protective lenses to protect your eyes from sun and violet-blue light, eating your greens, staying fit and not smoking can greatly benefit a person’s long-term eye health.”
So the next time you see a United player wearing a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses, remember that the reason might be for a little more than for commercial gain.
