For the first picture (blue logo on white shirt), notice how there’s a trailing stitch between the letters of the logo. The typeface is also too thin, and the adidas stripes are slightly wonky. There are similar issues with the second picture (Ajax away), with the additional telltale sign of the logo pulling the surrounding areas of the shirt together. Briefly touching on swing tags again, avoid any tags with years that are drastically different to the shirt you’re supposedly looking it. The shirt below claims to be the legendary 1995 away as worn by the likes of Denis Bergkamp, but if you zoom in on the tags you’ll see a modern and generic looking tag with the year 2015 clearly printed on it. Fake shirts are illegal and cannot be sold in the UK regardless of if you say they're fake. These shirts are mass-produced by cheap labour and have been linked to poor human rights and organised crime. It is not okay to buy them because they're cheaper. The correct shirt for this code is the 2018 Columbia home and away shirt. The CW1526 code represents the shirt and the other number represent if it is home or away. Whilst we’re on this photo, notice also the difference on the swing tags. We’ll cover them again in the next point, but see how the tags on the right shirt states a generic “ADIDAS JSY”, rather than any mention of Arsenal. Fake tags will always go down this generic route, so keep an eye out for that.

As a bonus point to end on, this fake Arsenal shirt is incredibly shiny! Colour and material integrity can be faked easier than other areas, but when fakers get it wrong they often get it really wrong. I process a large number of football shirts monthly and get used to seeing the fake codes. This code is still doing the rounds and I've recently seen it on a "new in bag" 2021/2022 Manchester United away shirt! Like their rivals Nike, adidas do a good job of providing an easily accessible code across all their shirts. The code (also known as an International Article Number), found on a small tag usually on the inside of the collar, is 6 digits long consisting of 2 letters and 4 numbers.For the first example, a shirt pretending to be the 2019 Ajax away shirt brings up a random selection of adidas kits and crucially, nothing Ajax related. The second code is on a label which is in itself a warning sign due to the fact it’s upside down on the collar, but a search for “CW1526” confirms suspicions with results for the Colombia 2018 shirt (a favourite for fake producers) instead of the Juventus shirt it’s supposed to be. Tags

Since it’s full scale adoption in the late 90s, the current iteration of the adidas logo has grown to become one of the most recognisable marks in the world. Though the original trefoil logo does occasionally make an appearance, the majority of football shirts this side of the millennium have featured the same, iconic adidas design. Product codes are simply invaluable when trying to identify a fake shirt. Though the quality of fake kits has risen considerably over the years, I’ve never come across a fake that’s used the correct product code. For any shirt post 2002 (apart from the 2011/22 season), the following Arsenal crest will be seen on any genuine shirt. Everything from the crispness of the lettering to the shape of the cannon should be spot on, and though there may be some material differences across different shirts you’ll want to pay extra attention to this area when trying to spot a fake Arsenal football shirt. Now let’s take a look at some fakes. The vast majority of fakes slip up in the area of the adi logo, and before long you’ll probably be able to distinguish between a genuine shirt and a counterfeit on this area alone. There are lots more shirts out there with this code. I would expect it is the same factory that is producing all these fakes and using the same codes for all of them.Long sleeves - For some reason counterfeits seem to love a long sleeve remake. Long sleeves were only sold in small batches at this time and command a high premium. Again if they seem too cheap then they're probably not authentic - Excluding goal keeper shirts which are long sleeve 90% of the time. Enough gushing about Arsenal though, we’re here to talk about fake Arsenal shirts. How do you avoid buying a fake Arsenal football shirt, in what is becoming an increasingly difficult market to navigate. We’ve looked at fake shirts from various brands in the past, but this guide will focus exclusively on Arsenal covering shirts from different decades. Nike Depop has a counterfeit guarantee to cover buyers if you are sold a fake. You can also report them to Depop via the listings. In a continuation of our brand specific fake guide, we’re turning our attention to German giants adidas. Here’s an example of a real product code for a Club Universidad de Chile shirt. If you Google the code DP2644, you’ll see some results of the shirt. Because this particular shirt is relatively rare, there aren’t many pictures, but ultimately the main thing you want to avoid is pictures of another completely different adidas shirt.

As before, we’ll be referring to pictures to help us identify what sorts of things to look out for when trying to sniff out dodgy adidas kits. Many of these pictures have been provided by members of the community, so thanks to those who helped out and provided content! Finally, notice how the logo on this third example (Liverpool home) sees both ‘d’s of adidas joined to the corner of the three stripes in a peculiar way. The biggest stripe even has a trailing corner, this simply isn’t the adidas logo. Always ask the buyer to see this label. The vast majority of fake Nike United shirts from the 2000s will not have this label at all. These photos from a replica LAFC shirt show an application detail on the bottom right, and no authenticity tag on the left but the material type tag instead. The shirt is genuine, as confirmed by the details of the shirt, the product code and the original tags, so bear that in mind.To understand what a fake Arsenal logo looks like, see the following comparison image. When placed side by side, it’s clear which crest is fake. The inconsistent spacing around red portion of the inner shield, the warped text and jagged edges around the white lines in particular are giveaways, and the majority of fake crests aren’t even as ‘good’ as this one.