Budget calculations should factor in football shirt sales

The first sign of the 2008 crash was a drop in the sale of football shirts — the same appears to be happening now, writes Eoin McGettigan 

Sportswear retailers are a canary in the coal mine when it comes to economics, says Eoin McGettigan. File picture: Larry Cummins

Forget about GDP, GNI, CPI and other three letter acronyms, TLAs, and focus on sales of Chelsea shirts. Why? Just read on.

As the Irish Government puts the finishing touches to the Budget in the maelstrom of faux strong talking between colleagues in power together, I can’t help but wonder about how careful they need to be. All the rest of us have to listen to, and often obey, the Central Bank. 

But the Government don’t seem to pay attention to their warnings, as 2025 spending is already well ahead on last year’s Budget. The Government’s own independent council, IFAC, headed up by UCC lecturer Seamus Coffey, has any number of economic measures to warn the politicians to rein in out-of-control spending.

Many peoples’ eyes glaze over when they start to read of GNI, fiscal space, GDP per capita and other measures used by economists. Perhaps it needn’t be so complicated. Could thgere be an easier, more brain-friendly way to predict economic calamity. 

Maybe, just maybe, sales of Chelsea football shirts could be the lead indicator we’ve all been looking for.

In early 2006, I became CEO of Lifestyle Sports. The business had grown out of a sideline Quinnsworth had set up decades earlier. When Tesco entered the Irish grocery market for the second time by buying Quinnsworth in 1997 they found they didn’t want Lifestyle Sports. 

It eventually, via private equity, became owned by the Stafford family who appointed me. We set about investing in the stores, developing and training staff and improving the product range. I thought we were doing a great job but sales at the tills had flatlined. 

All other retail categories in Ireland were still booming. The Government of the day, along with the Central Bank, were telling us that things were great. But our tills told a different story. By early 2008 our same store sales were less than the same period a year earlier. This was serious.

We all know now what happened in late 2008. Even those of us too young to remember know that the worst economic crash since 1929 hit the world. Ireland was amongst the hardest hit, where we couldn’t turn off the spending tap that had been jammed in the open position by a decade of buoyant tax receipts from the construction boom.

Economic indicator

What is the relevance of this to us today? Well, a few weeks ago JD Sports released their numbers for H1 2025. Despite overall UK retail trends being relatively strong due to a combination of some volume increases and inflation, their UK sales were down 3.3%. 

I believe this is a lead indicator for recession in the UK. The reason is connected to the customer in the sports retail market. Unlike almost all other retail categories, the main customer is male and under 25 years of age. 

The customers also tend to come from the socioeconomic group C2DE, in other words the young men under 25 who are the mainstay of the unskilled or semi-skilled workforce. This group is hit first when an economy begins to falter. 

Overtime is cut, shifts are reduced, bonuses are cut. They work in production lines, in giant warehouses or in the gig economy. If history repeats itself, then the UK is heading for recession in Q2 2026.

What about Ireland? It’s more difficult to get the sales data for Irish sports retail. Having said that, the most recent numbers for Lifestyle Sports show they had flat sales in 2023 versus 2022. 

Eoin McGettigan: 'Ministers Chambers and O’Donoghue would do well to pick up the phone to the Stafford family and ask them about sales at the tills in Lifestyle Sports.'

Given inflation was prevalent during this period, these numbers indicated to me that the actual volume of sales will have fallen or that customers will have traded down and bought cheaper products. If the sales trends in Irish sports retail market have moved in to negative territory it could be a bellwether for an economic recession.

So, ministers Chambers and O’Donoghue would do well to pick up the phone to the Stafford family and ask them about sales at the tills in Lifestyle Sports. It might just save us a lot of grief down the road.

• Eoin McGettigan currently chairs two Irish-based companies, United Hardware and National Beauty Distribution. He has been a main board director of Musgraves, Dunnes Stores and Lifestyle Sports in Ireland, and COOP retail in the UK.