The new kit was presented last Sunday, and it was launched via the club’s website. The design was selected by its fans on Gremio’s Facebook page. The new fourth soccer jersey has a blue marine color with white and sky blue details on it. Banrisul (Largest Bank in Southern Brazil) runs across the middle of the shirt in white letters. The white topper logo is on the top right while on the opposite the club’s badge.  It has a cut in “v” neck, followed by a sky-blue band that ends almost at the chest level. The sleeves have shirt’s same color with no edges.

Do you like this soccer jersey? Please rate Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

The new edition shirt celebrates its 30^th anniversary with an electronic illuminated star above the club’s badge. The star’s light was made possible with the use of an armband with batteries (Duracell) that the players will be wearing on its left arm.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rts7K04t9R0

The 19-year-old striker from a poor family had just signed a lucrative new contract with Santos, the team where soccer legend Pele spent most of his career, that will keep him there until at least 2014 when Brazil hosts the World Cup.

For years, Brazil exported most of its best young players, especially to European clubs.

But as the country’s economic power catches up with its time-honored soccer talent, celebrated players like Neymar are shunning big European teams and enjoying the comforts of home for similarly fat salaries.

Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea are among the teams that tried to tempt Neymar to Europe, the traditional route to success, wealth and recognition for Brazilians over the years.

But Santos put an end to months of speculation over Neymar’s future by announcing a package worth about $20.4 million a year in salary and sponsorship that vaulted the attacker into the ranks of the world’ best-paid players.

“Today Brazil is a different world economically speaking. Clubs know how to make money now and can pay the best players well. You only go to Europe now when you really want to,” Neymar’s agent Wagner Ribeiro told Reuters.

When Brazil claimed its fifth World Cup victory in 2002, few could have imagined its top players like Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo wanting to play in Brazil, whose teams’ financial clout reflected an economy that was only just emerging from years of instability.

While Europe struggles through a deepening economic crisis, Brazil’s economy is still growing relatively strongly after a long boom and its soccer league appears to have woken up to its own potential for profit.

Deals for television rights to matches played by Brazil’s biggest clubs like Flamengo and Corinthians were signed this year at up to 15 times the sums they fetched a decade ago, reaching 85 million reais ($48.4 million) for each team.

Some teams have also seen revenues balloon ten-fold from sponsorship and the sales of club merchandise.

Hanging on talent

The doubling in the value of Brazil’s currency, the real, against the dollar since 2003 has also increased the appeal of staying at home.

Neymar is the only player among 23 nominees this year for the FIFA Golden Ball award who does not play in a European team, but his decision is the latest in a trend of Brazilians electing to stay put or return home. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Adriano, Fred and Elano are among the big-name players to have made the homecoming recently.

As foreign interest rises in the national league with the approaching World Cup, Brazil looks likely to hang on to more of its home-grown talent.

“These are choices that we have to make in life and mine was to continue in Santos,” said a smiling Neymar, announcing his decision to stay on at Santos on Wednesday. He wore a baseball cap and T-shirt that read “It’s good to be the king”.

Barely out of adolescence and close to his family, the player said his three-month-old son, born out of a short-lived fling, was an important consideration in sticking with Santos.

Some Brazilian players in the past have returned home from Europe having failed to live up to the early promise they had shown, saying they simply missed home. But the successful ones have typically spent most of their careers abroad.

Brazilian fans cheered Neymar’s decision to stay put this week, plastering his image over social networks, and his contract renewal also caught the attention of big business, eyeing marketing opportunities.

State-owned companies Banco do Brasil and the postal service Correios are close to sealing sponsorship deals with the player, according to sources involved in the deals.

“Neymar is one of the main idols of the sport in Brazil, which has the potential to mobilize youth and has a great ability to communicate in mass marketing campaigns,” the bank told Reuters by e-mail.

More sophisticated sports marketing deals — a crucial component of the Neymar package — have been important in pumping up players’ salaries to attractive levels.

Two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldinho returned to Brazil in January to join Rio de Janeiro team Flamengo in a deal that sees his salary mostly footed by an investment fund that has the right to exploit his image.

Ronaldo, who was World Player of the Year three times, returned to Brazil in 2009, joining Sao Paulo team Corinthians under a similar deal.

The president of Santos, Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro, was delighted by Neymar’s decision to stick with the club.

“Neymar is following in Pele’s footsteps,” he said.

Source: reuters.com

The new third soccer jersey is practically all black with red details on it. On the front side, it has a red horizontal band located at the chest level that goes from side to side. On the top right inside this band is the white Olympikus logo while on the opposite the club’s badge where above it has a gold star alluding its one and only Copa Libertadores. It has a black polo sort of cut in “v” neck. No details on its shoulders and black sleeves with red hems.

Below Third kit’s video presentation  

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeZKJik2wuA

Do you like this soccer jersey? Please rate Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Carlos Tevez’s probable departure for Corinthians feels incongruous. South American players returning to their home continent is no novelty, but they tend to go only when they can no longer play with the best inEurope. Ronaldinho, Deco, and Adriano have all returned in recent years, but all did so in the downswing of their careers.

Tevez, though, is playing the best football of his life. Rather his departure signposts the increased financial power of the Brazilian league.

The fee and wages for Tevez will amount to more than for any other player inBrazil. But Corinthians, one of the biggest clubs in Brazilian football, are uniquely able to afford him. This is primarily due to a television deal the club have negotiated, the largest in the country.

After a collective deal between the clubs could not be reached, Corinthians capitalised by arranging their own. They are the best-supported team in Sao Paolo,Brazil’s largest city, and the second biggest team in the country, behind Flamengo. This popularity has allowed them to negotiate a deal thought to be worth between £40million and £50m annually. It provides the financial muscle required for them to compete with the European elite.

Beyond TV rights, Corinthians’ prestige and popularity ensures one of Brazil’s best commercials deals; pharmaceutical giant Neo Quimica sponsor them, paying £15m for the right to advertise on their shirts last season. Neo Quimica are thought to have contributed to the wages of Liedson, the Portugal striker who returned to Corinthians from Sporting Lisbon in January, and who now earns £40,000 per week.

The deal to sign Liedson is no isolated case. Sponsorship money is flooding into Brazilian football, thanks to the wealth generated over a decade of economic progress. Growth last year was a record 7.5 per cent, and 48.7m Brazilians have entered the middle or upper class since 2003. This has inevitably led to more revenue for teams. “People have more money, salaries are up, they can spend more on tickets and shirts,” said the Flamengo president, Patricia Amorim.

Brazil’s larger clubs can pay wages they previously would not have been able to afford. Ronaldinho earns £100,000 per week at Flamengo, largely thanks to corporate sponsorship. Another pharmaceutical company, Unimed, helped to pay for Fluminense’s double-signing of Deco and Juliano Belletti from Chelsea in 2010, which helped them to that year’s Campeonato Brasileiro.

Of course, Tevez is different, because of the presence of Kia Joorabchian, who has part-owned the striker before and may do so again. Joorabchian was a director of Corinthians when he first took Tevez there fromBuenos Airesin 2004. But even without his influence, the cycle of Brazilian growth and investment in football is only going to continue, to the signing of Tevez and beyond.

Source: independent.co.uk