On Romanian Football: 2024–2025 brands in Romanian First League
Here is my annual post providing a brief overview of the brands each team wears in Romania’s top-tier football league.
The 2024–2025 Superliga Romania kicked off on July 12th. The information below is based on the debut games and pre-season friendlies. As seen in past seasons, kit suppliers for Romanian teams can change even after the season starts. I will update this post accordingly.
Unfortunately all shirts from this season are templates. In the world of football kits, a template shirt design refers to a pre-designed, standardized layout or pattern created by sportswear manufacturers (Nike, Adidas, etc) for their football shirts.
These templates are used by multiple teams, often with different color schemes and customizations to distinguish each team’s unique identity. All 16 Romanian teams this season use a template design for their shirts. None of the clubs have designed any special kit/shirt.
1.Nike— 5 teams out of 16
Teams: FCSB, Farul, CFR Cluj, Hermannstadt, Poli Iasi
In Romania’s top-tier football league, the Nike equipment used by these 5 teams is provided through third-party retailers that have direct partnerships with Nike. Unlike major clubs worldwide that receive sponsorship payments from Nike, these Romanian teams do not receive direct sponsorship from the brand. Instead, they have an agreement with a third-party supplier in Eastern Europe, which supplies the Nike gear for them.
Consequently, all of these team only wear Nike templates equipment and none of these teams have any particular special kit designs.
Ok, now let’s look at some of the templates:
Farul Constanta — Nike Challenge V 2024 Teamwear Template
FCSB — Vapor IV Template home + Trophy V template away
CFR Cluj, Iasi and Hermannstadt — Park VII template
2. Adidas — 5 teams out of 16
Similar to Nike situation. All of the teams using adidas equipment this year have bought it through a third-party retailer. These Romanian teams do not receive direct sponsorship from the German brand. Instead their equipment is provided by a “middle-man” with operations within Eastern European market.
Consequently, all of these teams only wear Adidas templates and none of these teams have any particular special kit designs.
Surprisingly, none of these teams actually sell other Adidas products such as jackets, rain jackets, hats, tracksuits, polo shirts, or windbreakers in their web shops. The items they sell on the webshop are unbranded, featuring only the team badge. This indicates and confirms that the Adidas equipment is not provided directly by the brand. Some of the clubs manufacture their other sports equipment locally and only have the match equipment branded with Adidas logo.
Ok, now let’s look at some of the templates:
Otelul — Team Icon 23 template
Universitatea Cluj — Striped 24 template
FC Botosani — Campeon 23 template
3. Macron — 2 teams out of 16
Macron has been one of the few brands willing to create personalised designs for Romanian teams, notably for Dinamo Bucharest almost every season. However, starting two years ago, they shifted to using template designs. Consequently, both Dinamo Bucharest and Petrolul Ploiesti are using Macron templates this year. Unlike other brands, Macron provides their equipment directly to these teams, not through a third-party company.
Petrolul has new ownership this year, with a Turkish consortium taking over. They may look to make changes regarding the team’s equipment, but nothing has been announced yet. As of the time of writing this article, Petrolul debuted with last year Macron kits in their first game of this new season.
Last year, Petrolul switched to Macron after already playing 10 games, in Adidas, into the 2023–2024 season. This demonstrates that unexpected changes are always possible in Romanian football.
Ok, now let’s look at the templates:
Dinamo uses Macron Wyvern Eco template and Petorlul Macron Tureis
4. Puma — 1 team out of 16
Universitatea Craiova has also a template design for their new Puma dryCELL shirts. It is more or less the same as the one Deportivo Alavés is going to use this season. The difference is that Craiova shirt has the stripes on the font thiner than the Alavés shirt and the neck collar is different. Colors and material are the same.
5. Joma — 1 team out of 16
Last season, 2023–2024, marked the first time in many years that Joma was not present in the Romanian top football tier. Back in the 2020–2021 season, six teams in the league used Joma. Now, Joma has made a comeback as the technical sponsor for the newly promoted Gloria Buzău. Team is using a Joma template.
7.Saller — 1 team out of 16
Long time agreement between these Saller and UTA. Saller has been providing football kits for UTA Arad since 2010. Before Saller, UTA Arad’s kits were supplied by Errea until 2007.
8.Kappa — 1 team out of 16
Rapid is renowned in Romania for its strong relationship with its fan base. Everything the team does is aimed at pleasing its supporters, including the design of their kits. Switching from Nike’s basic Park template to Kappa, in 2023–2024 season, was a smart move, as the quality of the shirts significantly improved and the difference was noticeable. However, this season’s shirt design is once again a standard Kappa template, lacking any personalised or club-inspired elements.
Rapid shirt is the same model as the SKA-2 Khabarovsk (Russia) or CA Huracán (Argentina) use. It is a kappa kombat template shirt that is being sold by kappa by only changing the colors. That is how templates work.
Final words:
It’s a pity that Romanian top-tier football clubs do not enjoy personalised design shirts, as they heavily rely on standard templates provided by sports manufacturers or by their third party suppliers.
While these templates ensure high-quality, performance-focused kits, they lack the unique identity and cultural elements that bespoke designs could offer. This reliance on generic templates means that Romanian clubs miss out on the opportunity to showcase their heritage, fan culture, and distinctiveness through their kits.
Romanian clubs rely on the idea that fans will buy shirts solely for the club’s colors?
Comparison of last 3 years:
For detailed insights on the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 seasons, visit my Instagram page. To read more about the shirts used in the 2021–2022 season, check out my previous post:
-> On Romanian Football: 2021–2022 brands in Romanian First League
I reimagined some top Romanian teams kits with a “throwback vibe” inspired by some their most successful eras. My next blog post explains these design choices in detail
-> On Romanian Football: Reimagining Top Romanian Football Kits
Sponsors
12 out of 16 teams are sponsored by betting companies. The remaining four teams have different sponsors: Sepsi is sponsored by a bread-making factory, Petrolul Ploiesti by a supermarket, Otelul Galati by a steel factory, and Buzau by an electricity supplier (last row from left to right in the image).
Romanian First League is also sponsored by Superbet therefore the competition name is Superliga Romania.
I post stories about Romania match worn shirts on Instagram. If you want to get in touch with me you can find me there as onromanianfootball:
https://www.instagram.com/onromanianfootball/
