In April 2008 Fenerium shops have opened up in Batman, Ankara, and Denizli. The Ankara and Denizli locations are situated in malls, whereas the Batman store is a stand alone establishment.

The Fenerium brand began as a lone shop in 1997 located beside the North East entrance of the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium. Today, fans would recognize that store as the "Little Fenerium" as opposed to the "Big Fenerium" on the other side of the club grounds.

The brand "Fenerium" came under the spotlight in the 2000-2001 season as the sole kit provider for the entire club. Fenerbahce won a long awaited championship in the same season, ousting a legendary Galatasaray squad at the time. The Fenerium name grew throughout Turkey, and so did the technology. In the summer prior to the start of the 2003-2004 season, Fenerbahce sealed a deal with chemical giant DuPont, introducing a revolutionary fabric that allowed sweat generated from players to seep outside the jersey allowing a comfortable fit through 90 minutes.

At the start of the  2004-2005 compaign Fenerbahce inked a 4 year 'kit-only' deal with Adidas, leaving the Fenerium brand to supply the football squad with practice wear. Fenerium sold 1.720.000 items of merchandise to make 19 M US$ in gross revenue in 41 stores and 200 other outlets. The number of kits sold is reached 285.000 for the 2004-05 season, which marked a stepping stone for sales by any sport club retail shop in Turkey. Although there are no official numbers to date since the Roberto Carlos transfer, it would be safe to assume that these numbers increased 3-4 fold.

Fenerbahce board member Nihat Ozdemir has claimed that Fenerium has become a "Money Making Machine" and has provided the necessary funds to complete non-football related projects such as schools, sports complexes, and sport academies for children. The Fenerium brand has become so successful and profitable, that the added revenue propelled Fenerbahce into a big player in the Turkish retail industry. With this high influx of revenue from Fenerium, Fenerbahce is now among the highest taxpaying organizations in the country.

Today, Fenerium stores are scattered all over Turkey, and has begun to expand to many locations in Europe as well. In addition to these stores, Fenerium introduced a mobile store which is a Semi Truck full of Fenerium gear that travels with the squad to away matches. Its aim is to provide a convenient solution to Fenerbahce fans at these away fixtures.

Fenerium has grown into a full fledged apparel brand, selling merchandise from baby clothing, watches, jackets, to slippers, towels, mobile telephones, shoes and much more. Fenerbahce's past footballer Nicolas Anelka's launched clothing line Nic39 and current star Stephen Appiah's charity organisation called StepApp Foundation's clothes also available at Fenerium stores.

Perhaps such astronomical growth and success wasn't expected by Aziz Yildirim and Co. Nevertheless, the idea of self branding on a marketing and financial standpoint for a club as big and as popular as Fenerbahce is sheer genius. 

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Jemster   |20-04-2008 11:25:44 Nice article Cenk. Fenerium goes from strength to strength. No wonder other major European clubs are evaluating its success and trying to establish the reasons behind it.

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