I think there’s definitely some legal questions concerning reproducing shirts which feature currently extant sportswear brands like Umbro, Asics and Admiral - irrespective of the club logo situation. However in the case of Ribero that company went bust back in the early 90s (which is why both Norwich and Crystal Palace ended up wearing their existing Ribero kit, but with a new supplier label over the top - Mitre in Norwich’s case, and Nutmeg for Palace). This makes their situation a little more unclear: Norwich have already re-used a version of their Ribero kit pattern as part of a third kit made by Errea, and there’s also an officially-licensed reproduction of the 92-94 kit made by one of the main retro shirt companies (I thought it was Score Draw but apparently it’s someone else).
So just who owns the rights to that pattern? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the club itself? Funnily enough I tracked down one of the old Ribero club directors a year or so back to ask about licensing the pattern and he told me that they (as in Ribero, apparently reborn) would be producing retro shirts in the next six months, citing Burnley as an example. I don’t think this ever happened though.
Complicating matters even more, it appears that the Chinese knock-off industry (which already makes a very healthy living from reproducing current modern day kits extremely faithfully for a fraction of the cost) has now started making reproductions of famous retro kits. These appear to be extremely accurate, so it makes it a lot harder to identify genuine older kits sold on eBay. I doubt they’d ever focus on Coventry, though, so maybe there’s still space for somebody like FMC provided there’s no trademarks being exploited, and they’re not direct copies of originals. I remember when I shared my fantasy kits on here a lot of people were concerned about the legal angle too, but provided you’re not exactly copying anyone it ought to be fine. Trouble is that means they’re probably less desirable too!
