Southampton FC have announced that their retail operation will be shutting down for a short though unspecified period of time due to issues with an external third party, read on for more details.
Saints have announced on their official website the need to shut down both online operations as well as their retail outlets, due to ongoing issues with Elite Sports Group, the external third party who manage the retail side of things for not only Southampton FC but a number of other clubs.
Although this is said not to be a long term issue, it does mean that all sales of merchandise will cease for a short period.
A look online shows Elite Sports Group to be "the Exclusive Brand Partner of Danish Football brand Hummel. We activate Bespoke kit programmes for all our clubs, and also manage some of our clubs retail and online operation."
They also seem to provide other merchandise for club's that are not related to the branded playing kit and training gear.
This seems to suggest that the problem for Saints will be stock, although they will have a supply of merchandise, how much of a stock they have and indeed who owns the stock could be open for debate, when it runs out it will take time to source new suppliers etc and that could mean that the lucrative Xmas market could be missed.
The full statement reads as follows
"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.
We will communicate further once we have confirmed timings for reopening our retail stores, and more information on how we can ensure existing orders are fulfilled. However, in the meantime, any fans who are concerned about existing orders can contact retail@saintsfc.co.uk.
With Black Friday sales and the Christmas shopping period upon us, we recognise the importance of this time of year for supporters wanting to purchase gifts and are doing all we can to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. We thank all our fans for being patient at this time and apologise for any inconvenience."