Despite the immense popularity of football and its undisputed lead as the most watched sport in the Middle East and
North Africa, fans until now did not have easy access to authentic merchandise to support their local teams. To bridge this divide between the team and its fans, KooraBazar.com pushed forth with a campaign to sign-up the region’s football teams to sell their authentic merchandise through their innovative and secure online football shop.
Established only in June 2013, KooraBazar, was quick to amass support from the large sports brands and the regional football clubs to become one of their main merchandise outlets, and is actively adding more teams to its partner base. Through this straight-forward, easy to use and safe e-commerce website, fans from the Middle East and around the world can now buy the merchandise of the local clubs, as well as those of the international football teams.
Mohamed Bin Faraj, Deputy CEO of Dubai’s Al Ahli club said: “We get many requests for merchandise items from our fans around the world. We now direct them to KooraBazar.com because they have all of our products.”
According to Deloitte’s Football Money League report, merchandise is a large part of European teams’ revenue stream accounting for between 20-30 percent of the revenues. But, unlike Europe, the Arab football merchandise market is still in its infancy.
Ghazi Ben Amor, co-founder and Managing Director of KooraBazar, said: “We are seeing a great deal of interest for regional team merchandise locally and from around the world; and we are in discussions with many teams to add their products to our portfolio. We are now carrying products from 9 regional football clubs and national teams including the Saudi and Qatari national teams, and Al Jazira, Al Ain, Baniyas, Al Ahli, Al Wahda and Dubai SC clubs. We will soon be adding more teams from the UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and other countries. Thus, our website will become a one-stop-shop for everything football fans are looking for to support their team.”
Football clubs and national teams in the Middle East are becoming increasingly professional and established, and are gradually gaining fans regionally and across the world. They are building new stadiums, hiring professional staff, getting sponsorship deals and recruiting international players. In addition, in 2022 Qatar will be the first Arab nation to host the World Cup, giving football an additional immense on the regional sporting scene.
“KooraBazar.com is the technology partner that allows the regional football clubs to generate revenue, and to engage with fans who want to support their team by buying and wearing their merchandise, added Yorgos Kleivokiots, the other co-founder. “We expect to see an increase in regional football teams’ marketing and an improvement in how they communicate about their merchandise to the sport community and to their fans. Other than the Middle East, we have sold GCC team jerseys in the US, Australia, Hong Kong and many European countries, which is an indication of how fast Arab teams are gaining world-wide interest.”
Hassan Akherraz, GCC Area Manager of Errea, the Italian sportswear brand which works with many clubs in the region said “KooraBazar.com has been a reliable partner for us in broadening our access to a global fanbase”
KooraBazar also focuses on selling football related products like team kits, football boots, training apparel and items signed by football stars from all the top sports brands. Fans can also customize their favorite team’s jersey with their own name and have them delivered to their door.
