Football Programmes Centre

James · Joined: 22 Nov 2008 Posts: 485

What is your take on Pirate programmes, particularly to the games of your team away to foriegn opposition??

Reason for my question is Spurs played away at Shaktor Donetsk in Feb this year, manged to get an Official programme and part of the package was also 26, (yes Twenty Six) different pirate programmes and those are just from the Ukraine, there were other pirate programmes produced in Russia and England.

paulo · Joined: 20 Nov 2008 Posts: 1098 Location: Norwich, NR7

26! Blimey.

Dont see the point myself and I only collect the offical programme.

I must admit its sometimes hard to know what is considered the original with England away games, when there is not a programme freely available.

Barrett · Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:51 pm Post subject:

It's very hard, if not near impossible to get an 'official' programme for European away games in Italy.

We played Fiorentina last year in the UEFA Cup and there were several programmes doing the round claiming to be 'official' but by speaking to Italian supporters we later found out they are just pirates. The Italian clubs don't produce official programmes as their is just not enough demand for them.

Ticket collecting is the big thing in Italy these days.

Therefore, when I'm going to get an away game programme in Italy I usually just buy the 2 or 3 most popular pirates to fill the gap left.

Auchinleckian · Forum Moderator Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 4352

It's the basic law of supply and demand - if people are prepared to buy them people will print them. It used to be a huge "spiv" problem in the 40's 50's and 60's, now it's uniquely in European competitions. Am somewaht of a purist and don't knowledgeably accept pirates, but am convicned I have a few. Without an encyclopediac knowledge of what's prodcued it's impossible to tell. Always lookout for the words "official programme2 and the UEFA logo on such issues abroad as the penalties for producing something with them on without their permission is huge. Then again, if somebody's knocking up a couple of hundred on a computer at home, how would UEFA ever trace them?
Best way, if you can afford the calls, and either (a) speak the language of the club you're playing or (b) hope they speak English, is to ring the club direct prior to the game to see if there's anything official going to be sold.