Bob and Tijmen Zonderwijk founded MatchWornShirt and every month sell auction thousands of jerseys … [+]
Bob and Tijmen Zonderwijk have sold about 55,000 match-worn soccer jerseys this year. Not long ago, they couldn’t get their hands on even one.
MatchWornShirt is an online marketplace for fans and collectors to bid for authentic, signed shirts that soccer stars have worn in a match.
The soccer-mad brothers, from The Netherlands, got the idea after searching for a special gift for their father, a high school headteacher who was starting a new role after 30 years. They wanted to buy a shirt, worn and signed by a player from their father’s favorite team, the Dutch club Ajax. They couldn’t find one.
Eventually, they discovered Ajax auctioned a match-worn shirt once a year, with the proceeds going to charity.
“We were just thinking, it’s such a simple idea. There’s probably a good reason why clubs are not doing this yet,” Tijmen tells me in an interview.
Working 80-hour weeks in their jobs as lawyers, the brothers used the little spare time they had to develop their business idea.
It wasn’t easy to convince soccer teams.
“The matchday and the sport side of things is sort of untouchable,” Tijmen says.
“Everybody first said ‘that’s not possible.’ Getting into the dressing room is like forbidden territory.”
But, in 2017, the brothers ran their first auction with another Dutch club, FC Twente.
Today, MatchWornShirt works with about 300 soccer clubs and national teams — including Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool and Napoli — in 35 countries.
The brothers found a way in by connecting with the team kit managers, or “kitmen”, who are responsible for what happens to player shirts.
“The kitman for us is the most important person within the football club,” Tijmen says.
Last year, MatchWornShirt hosted the first European kitman conference in Amsterdam, inviting 180 club representatives and 90 kitmen from partner clubs.
After initially struggling to attract clubs, MatchWornShirt now works with about 300 soccer club and … [+]
Contracts with teams can include auctioning every player shirt from every match, or from a limited number, for example one important match in the season.
The brothers also found clubs were more open to the idea when they learned of the charitable element to MatchWornShirt auctions. There are different types of agreements, but approximately 79% of proceeds from each sale are returned to the partner club. Some clubs channel this money into their own charitable foundation, or other philanthropic causes.
MatchWornShirt also holds competition-wide initiatives, including supporting the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal. Close to £3 million ($3.8m) has been donated to the appeal over the six years of partnership, with the company donating more than €12 million ($12.7m) to charitable causes since 2022.
The shirt auctioned is typically the one a player has worn in the first half of a match.
“Not a lot of people know it, but of course players swap shirts during half-time, almost all of them, so they are not cooling down in a sweaty shirt for 15 minutes,” Tijmen says.
“Then players are still free to swap a shirt after the game with the opponent or throw a shirt in the stands, which are also rituals we don’t want to interfere with. That’s part of the beautiful game.”
The player signs their shirt directly after the match or next time they are at training. MatchWornShirt conducts an authenticity check, including placing an information chip in the shirt, takes photos and makes it available for auction.
Players sign the jersey they wore before they are sent for “cleaning” and authentication.
There have been unforeseen challenges along the way. A Real Madrid representative pointed out player shirts contain their DNA.
“When we had the conversation, they still had (Cristiano) Ronaldo in the team,” Tijmen says.
“They said ‘the player DNA cannot leave the Bernabéu (Stadium)’. We said ‘by washing them, you wash away half the value.’”
To solve the problem — and protect the privacy of players — the company developed a mobile solution to ‘clean’ a shirt without water, using Ultraviolet-C light.
With a growing number of teams on board, sales have boomed.
Bob says buyers are from “all over”, with those who spend the most per head from the United States, China and the U.K.
Shirts are bought as a gift, decoration for the office or because the buyer has an attachment to a certain player or match. Serious collectors are also customers.
“Especially people from Asia and the U.S., they are willing to go the extra mile for something really special,” Bob says.
“You buy a shirt not only because you think it’s maybe a good investment, but moreover because you have a good feeling with it personally.”
Unsurprisingly, the most expensive jersey auctioned on the site was worn by Lionel Messi. From his final season playing for Paris Saint-Germain, the winning bid was €55,000 ($58k).
It is not uncommon for shirts from special performances to go for five figures. After Chelsea forward Cole Palmer became the first player to score four first-half goals in a Premier League match against Brighton in September, a bidder parted with $43,000 for his jersey.
There are cheaper options. MatchWornShirt has agreements with clubs as far down the soccer pyramid as League Two, the fourth tier of English soccer.
“The top players, but also the older top players, they generate by far the most revenue,” Tijmen says.
“For us, a Messi shirt is four times more valuable than a Haaland or an Mbappé shirt.”
A jersey worn by Lionel Messi during his time at Paris Saint-Germain sold for a winning bid of … [+]
The business now employs more than 100 in offices in Amsterdam, London, Istanbul, Melbourne and Sao Paulo, yet the brothers believe they have “just touched the surface of what we can do”.
They still see big potential in soccer, with only six of the 20 English Premier League teams currently partners. MatchWornShirt does not yet work regularly with some of the world’s biggest clubs, including Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
They are also eyeing other sports, having recently secured the France national rugby team. They have experimented selling “premium items” like race bikes from professional cycling teams. The website recently auctioned the sail boat used by Marit Bouwmeester — the most successful woman in Olympic sailing — at the Paris Olympics.
“What we use internally a lot is ‘limitless fandom’. That’s how we want people to think,” Bob says.
“So we don’t have to think only shirts, but what else can we do to keep broadening that horizon.”
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