About fake shirts from season 2005/06 or older.

Lately we’ve seen an increasing number of frauds. We noticed that some individuals are trying to trick people into bying what they call „vintage match worn Dynamo Kyiv shirts“, which are in fact fake.

We would like to share our experience and present this little review which hopefully will help you distinguish a vintage football shirt from a fake. In this review we are going to talk about retro football shirts from season 2005/06 or older. We will be comparing original vintage shirts to high quality fakes. We think there’s no point in analyzing cheap fakes of Chinese and Turkish origin.

1. The Size

Size is a very important factor, if a shirt you are looking at is smaller than a L-size, it’s not an authentic Dynamo Kyiv match worn shirt. Just look at some pictures taken during a football match about 20 yeas ago and you will clearly see that football shirts were much larger. At that time, there were no S or M sizes for the players, and a jersey was at least one size larger and very loose fit compared to the modern ones.

The size of an authentic vintage Dynamo Kyiv shirt should be between L and XXL, with XL being the most common.

2. Number and name

Thankfully, it’s relatively easy to tell the difference between an authentic match worn shirt and a fake by comparing fonts, as it is almost impossible to recreate the exact proportions of the number and name padding and to maintain the font geometry. One can hope to recreate the original font only by perfect study of match photos and videos and careful comparison of all the smallest details. The photos below show some examples of fake shirts that were advertised as match worn ones. However, some “high quality” fakes are even harder to identify.

There is one feature which deserves special attention and that is name and number. Almost any Dynamo Kyiv shirt (excluding ones from 2002-2004 seasons) make use of flock fiber for the name and number application. Flock has a soft, velvet-like feel to it. Dynamo Kyiv match worn shirts make use of a white flock fiber for the away kit and a dark one for the home kit. The number, player name and a brand logo can be different depending on a season, but flock has always been the main material (check photo 2 from the gallery).

3. Long sleeve

Shirts with long sleeve wasnt sold in official fan shop. Long Sleeved shirts were only for profi teams. So if you have shirt with long sleeve it a full 100% guarantee, that you have an authentic shirt.

4. Champions League patch

If you happen to come across a special shirt with the famous Champions league patch, please note that the patch itself has also changed over time. You can see the evolution of the Champions League patch on the pictures below.

Note that production of fake Champions League patches makes for a very lucrative industry, dominated by the Asian manufacturers.

5. Adidas manufacturer's code

Since 1999/2000 season, Adidas has been using the product code on the inside. This code is present on T-shirts from each season (with a few exceptions) and reflects the year of manufacture and the serial number of the product. The makers of fake football jerseys often do not pay much attention to this detail, so instead the correct numbers and letters, they print something random or there is no code at all.

An example of the shirt code for the 2002/03 season:

166864 = article number
ASR001/05 = product code
05/02 = date of production (month / year)

The simplest and most effective way to check a football shirt code (ASR001 / 05) is to search it through the google photo search. If the code is correct, then in the best case your football shirt will be displayed in the search results or, at the very least, you will find the same season football shirts of other teams, marked with the same code.