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Tournament Hype Helps Small Football Apparel Company Grow

One of the "biggest contests" at the World Cup was taking place off the pitch between adidas and Nike, according to Rob Taylor of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Luke Westcott, a 24-year-old Australian college student, "hit on a different business plan." He went ahead and "outfitted the game's minnows," nations like South Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, for whom the World Cup is a "distant dream and whose records so far make them unattractive" to global sportswear companies. In his "quest" to build a grassroots brand, Westcott has dealt with football-loving "armed rebels, Ebola scares and customs officials coveting his gear at the border." During a sales visit to South Sudan at the "height of the civil war" in '16, Westcott said that he was "bundled into a car filled with weapons and military gear." He said, "It turned out they were opposition -- or rebels, depending on your view. The opposition leader wanted some new jerseys from my hotel." Westcott built a supply chain that "starts in Australia, takes in factories in China and employs couriers to deliver the clothing to poor or conflict-racked nations in sub-Saharan Africa." He "exploited a big differential" in the prices charged by global sportswear companies and what African sports federations and citizens "typically can afford." A South Sudan shirt produced by his African Manufacturing Solutions business, founded five years ago, sells locally for around $10. Westcott said, "Our designs are also preferred to the counterfeits, because fakes are mostly just blank shirts with an adidas and national football logo." Although he opened a shop in Juba, South Sudan, most of his shirts are sold online to int'l collectors, many of them from the U.S. He said, "I can't say how much we're making, but it is profitable" (WSJ, 7/7).

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