New Delhi: The national football team will be without a kit sponsor for their Women’s Asian Cup campaign, which will begin on Wednesday (March 4) against Vietnam in Perth.
The All India Football Federation has reached an agreement in principle with Nivia Sports, but the deal couldn’t be agreed in time for the Jalandhar-based sports equipment company to ship new kits before their group stage opener in Perth.
India were the first visiting team to reach Australia for the tournament, landing on February 11, but had to postpone their customary tournament photoshoot on February 27 as the kits didn’t arrive by then.
When the kits ordered specifically for this tournament arrived from Delhi on Monday, it turned out to be of smaller size for majority of the players, prompting AIFF to get supplies locally.
“We are speaking with Nivia, who will be our kit sponsor. But they couldn’t prepare the kits within a short notice for the Women’s Asian Cup. Hence, we had to ordered on our own,” a person aware of the development revealed to News9 Sports.
Nivia is the official ball partner of the top-flight Indian Super League, as par of an existing multi-year deal extension signed in 2024.
During their month-long training camp and warm-up matches in Turkey from January 15 and since arrival in the Western Australian city, the team wore kits manufactured by its earlier partner Performax.
AIFF’s deal with Performax ended on December 8, 2025, following which a tender seeking proposals for the supply of match-day, travel and training kits for the men’s, women’s and youth national teams was issued on December 30.
Demands & expectations not in sync
Two companies placed bids for the four-year tender before the January 14 deadline but the contract wasn’t awarded to either of the interested entities as differences surfaced over demands and expectations.
With India qualifying for the senior, U-20 and U-17 Women’s Asian Cups this year, February 15 was set as the last date for delivery of match and training kits on “priority”.
But the federation’s demand of 31,895 items (inclusive of match kits, match merchandise, training kits and off-field merchandise) on top of a Rs 3 crore asking price became a hurdle, as the prospective companies believed that around 12,000 kits was sufficient for such deals.
Providing over 31,000 kits would have cost around Rs 7-8 crore, which on top of the 3 crore made it an unattractive proposition, companies pointed out.
When negotiations stalled, a top AIFF official when to Jalandhar to convince Nivia to sponsor for the sake of national interest, which though emotionally appealing wasn’t timely enough for kits to be prepared and shipped for the continental event where India have qualified for the first time on sporting merit in 23 years.
AIFF had appointed Costa Rican Amelia Valverde as the head coach of the senior team less than two months before the tournament’s kick-off.
Comments are closed.