The World Cup Fuels Football Shirt Boom on Whatnot
A football shirt is never just a shirt. It’s a symbol of national pride, of your favourite player, the memory of unforgettable matches and increasingly, of your personal style. This year, as the World Cup dominated group chats and watch parties sprung up around the world, shirts took over Whatnot.
While sports cards remain one of the most popular shopping categories on Whatnot, fashion has grown to be the largest category by order volume. This was especially reflective during the peak of the tournament, where football shirt searches grew faster than sports card searches. And in the UK, searches for shirts reached record highs throughout May and June 2026.
England demand skyrocketed
Unsurprisingly, in the UK, no shirt moved like England's. In the opening week of the tournament, England shirt searches ran 66 times higher than back in January, going from an afterthought at the beginning of the year to one of the most in-demand items on the platform almost overnight.
It wasn't a one-week spike, either. England shirt search demand held at roughly three times pre-tournament levels through the group and knockout stages, staying hot even after England’s run ended.
But demand moved in real time and across nations
Shirt demand didn’t stop there. Shopping reflected the global nature of the World Cup.
Demand moved in real time as teams advanced. Globally, football shirt searches for Norway roughly quintupled during the knockouts on the back of Haaland's run, while headline contenders climbed fast, Spain up 114%, France up 96% and Argentina up 53% week over week, as attention followed the teams still standing.
Hey Jude….(and Lionel)
Player demand moved just as fast as team demand.
In the UK, Bellingham was the standout with his searches quadrupling during the tournament, the single biggest riser of any England player. England captain Harry Kane saw a 37% rise.
Globally, football legend Messi drew more search interest than anyone, and together with 18-year-old Lamine Yamal accounted for nearly 40% of all named-player searches, as spectators watched the passing of the torch.
A breakout goal, a strong tournament run, or a viral match moment quickly turned into search demand for football shirts tied to a particular player.
Vintage shirts boomed globally
It wasn’t just new kits that captured demand. Some of the popular shirts were decades-old. Globally, searches for vintage shirts rose nearly 70% in a month, fuelled by fans hunting down legends of the game. In the UK, interest in Gerrard and Ronaldinho rose by more than a third during the tournament and Beckham held his top 15 spot.
In addition, different generations were looking for different vintage eras to add to their wardrobes.
Throughout the tournament, Whatnot seller Tom Rainsford, who runs RetroFootballShirts, shared that buyers were chasing the shirts they grew up on.
Millennials hunted down the 90s classics like Italia 90, USA 94 denim away shirt and Brazil 94, while Gen-Z looked to a decade later to the early-2000s Nike Total 90 era, with Ronaldo's debut Portugal shirts a firm favourite.
Whether shoppers were after national team kits, vintage finds, or player-specific shirts, one thing was clear: fans weren't just watching the tournament. They were shopping it live.
Seller spotlight: Tom Rainsford, RetroFootballShirts
Tom knows football shirts. He founded the Retro Football Fair in 2019, running it alongside a full-time office job, until in 2023 he backed himself and left to sell shirts for a living. He started from home with a couple of hundred shirts to his name. Today, he runs RetroFootballShirts full-time on Whatnot, employs four people and holds around 3,000 shirts at any given time, while still taking the fair to pop-ups around the country. Going live on Whatnot has been the engine of that growth. He sells through stock faster than at a pop-up.
"You can build a real community, with buyers coming back time after time," Tom says. "They ask questions, they want to hear the stories behind the vintage kits, and see the items up close before they buy."
That community shows up for the rare finds. "A standout for me this World Cup was a stream where a single collector spent £4,000 on a bundle of 30 vintage shirts, some really special ones in there, a 1980s East Germany, a 1994 AC Milan, a 1993 Borussia Dortmund," Tom says. "They came in, asked what we had, chose their bundle live and it was shipped to them that day."
Beyond the World Cup
The final's been played, but this summer showed football shirts are as much about fashion, memory and community as the match itself. And with the new Premier League season kicking off soon, there's plenty more to come, live on Whatnot.
