I was born and raised in Liverpool and have been a massive fan of Liverpool FC since before I can remember. I grew up in the city when Liverpool and Everton were the two best teams in the country – if not Europe – and I remember not bothering to go to the open-top bus parades if we had ‘only’ won the league. Things aren’t quite the same nowadays.
Last Tuesday I was back in the city for the first leg of our UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie against FC Porto. Quite unlike my unfortunately rare childhood visits to the ground, I was there last week as a guest of UEFA.
Icons have been an official UEFA’s licensed partner for memorabilia for seven years now and it’s the most successful licence we have. With our unrivalled roster of European superstars, we created an official UEFA Champions League range which is sold all around the world. Most recently we had a large order from MasterCard, who are using our signed memorabilia to promote their sponsorship of the tournament in Singapore and Thailand.
Our licensing manager, Ben, is also a big Liverpool fan. So, he and I take full advantage whenever we are invited to watch the Reds by our friends at UEFA. I was at last season’s quarter-final as Liverpool beat Manchester City and I was there for our epic UEFA Europa League semi-final triumph over Villarreal in 2016. I’ve seen some pretty huge Jurgen Klopp-inspired victories over these past few years!
Point is, here at Icons we are all huge football fans at heart. I grew up very rarely being able to get into Anfield and now I have been lucky enough to go three years in a row. We wanted the UEFA Champions League licence because we love the competition and we thought we could bring something unique to the party. The same goes with our official FIFA licence, which we’ve had for nine years now.
We love our teams, our stars and the iconic nights under the lights. It’s what football is all about and it’s exactly why we do what we do: always aiming to bring other fans closer to their heroes.