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Manufacturing takes 10 to 15 working days from the moment artwork is approved, with delivery transit on top depending on whether the kit is going to the UK, the USA or Europe. For a club that means counting backwards from the first fixture, not forwards from the committee meeting. Most late kit is late because approval slipped, not because production did.
How many working days from approval to dispatch?
Ten to fifteen, and they are working days rather than calendar days. A run that straddles a bank holiday week occupies more of the calendar than the same run in an ordinary month. Within that window the fabric is cut, the sets are sewn, decoration is applied, labels are fitted and everything is bagged and boxed.
The clock starts at approval of the placement proof, which is the document showing where every mark sits on the top and the jogger. Until that comes back signed, nothing is cut. Sets are quoted from our tracksuits page, and the general shape of apparel scheduling is set out in apparel production lead times explained.
When should a club order for a season start?
Work back from the date the squad needs to be wearing it. Take transit, then the production window, then a week for artwork rounds, then however long your club realistically takes to collect sizes and agree a design. For most committees that totals six to eight weeks, and the size collection is the part that overruns.
If a sample is wanted, add its own production and shipping before the main run. A club that wants the captain to try the fit before 80 sets are made needs to build that in at the planning stage rather than discovering it mid-project. Our work with clubs is outlined on the sports clubs page.
What delays club kit most often?
Sponsor artwork arriving late or arriving unusable. A committee that cannot agree on a colour. Sizes collected by group message and still incomplete a fortnight after the deadline. A proof sent for approval and left unread over a weekend. None of those are production problems, and all of them consume the buffer a club thought it had.
Name one person as the decision-maker and give them authority to approve the proof. Committees that require a vote on the artwork lose days at the exact point where days are worth most, and the production schedule cannot absorb them afterwards.
Watch the pre-season window in particular. Every club in the country wants kit in the same few weeks before a season opens, and the clubs that book early are the ones whose dates hold. A committee that starts the conversation in the closing weeks of the previous season has room to move; one that starts a fortnight before the first training session is relying on nothing at all going wrong. Tournament kit has the same shape of problem in a shorter frame, since the date is fixed months ahead and the squad is often confirmed only weeks before. Order against the date, and treat the squad list as something that can be finalised later than the quantity.
Can a fixed kit deadline be protected?
By building a buffer and defending it. Two weeks of slack after the expected delivery date is enough to absorb one thing going wrong, and something usually does. Clubs with an immovable date — a tournament, a presentation evening, a season opener — should treat that buffer as part of the deadline rather than as spare time.
The planning method is the same one brands use for a product launch, and planning apparel lead times so you never air freight explains where to put the slack so it actually helps.
