‘The shirt of one thousand sponsors’: Peru soccer club’s new kit promoting small businesses

Peruvian soccer team Deportivo Municipal has launched its unique new kit featuring 1,000 different sponsors.

Based in Lima, the nation’s capital, Deportivo Municipal are one of the nation’s most historic clubs and four-time national champions but currently play in the nation’s third division and have encountered financial problems.

After losing its main kit sponsorship, the club decided to launch a new campaign which would redesign its jersey with a pixelated grid made up of a thousand small black-and-white squares, each of which had room to showcase an individual sponsor.

Each square, available for a price of $60 (£44), represents an advertising spot for a small business located around Lima, and the club’s campaign turned its shirt into a crowdfunding platform.

“This shirt represents the love of a thousand ‘Muni’ fan entrepreneurs,” said the club’s chief brand officer, Jorge Fernandez Iraola. He added that those businesses had shown an interest in collectively offering the club financial support with micro-donations.

The club said the campaign has so fair raised 254k Peruvian Sol (£55.8k, $75k).

Instagram/@clubdeportivomunicipal

Each sponsor became an official retailer of Deportivo Municipial merchandise, including official shirts and scarves, while they also gained royalty-free access to the club’s players to promote their businesses.

All of Deportivo Municipal’s league titles came between 1938 and 1950.

They have twice competed in the Copa Libertadores, South America’s equivalent of the Champions League, and most recently in 2017. Peruvian soccer legends Nolberto Solano and Jefferson Farfan are among the club’s most famous former players.