Ellis Platten (AwayDays), who's a YouTuber specializing in football shirt content, recently published a piece about a new mystery box offering that was promoted by popular FIFA YouTubers Matthew Craig (MattHDGamer) and Craig Douglas (Nepenthez).
The 'Plus' boxes, retailing at £28.47, among other things, also included a 'replica' of the Mexico 1998 shirt. As reported by AwayDays, the sellers of the box cooperated with a known re-seller of fake football shirts on this one - something that was not disclosed anywhere on the site, besides obviously being illegal.
In the aftermath of the video, FootyCrate were quick to apologize and also announced that they had cut ties with the fake seller. They also stated that everyone who bought one of the boxes would get a full refund.
However, as pointed out by some of the replies, the fact that the very first box they sold included fake shirts does not speak well for them. One should also not forget that Nepenthez was fined £91,000 for running an unlicensed gambling website connected to FIFA just a few years ago.
The second edition of the their box does not list any football shirts among the included items.
We think this story once again shows that you should be very careful when ordering from unrepeatable sources online. And irrespective of whether FootyCrate knowingly included these fakes or actually thought they were legit "replicas", the fact that a company operating out of the UK has been blatantly selling fake shirts for years is shameful.
We will not name them in here in order to not give them free publicity, but it's obvious that they're processing lots of orders and doing very well for themselves if you just look at the sheer number of reviews online or the fact that they are advertising heavily on Google.
What's your take on this story? Comment below.