体坛英语新闻：Real Madrid and Manchester United lead sales of replica shirts

MADRID, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- A study published this Tuesday shows that Spanish club Real Madrid leads the way, along with Manchester United in the sales of replica football shirts.

The study published by Sportintelligence shows that both clubs sold and average of between 1.2 and 1.5 million replica shirts during the period 2005-2009.

Real Madrid wears shirts made by the company 'Adidas' , while Manchester United wears a kit made by rival manufacturer, Nike.

FC Barcelona was third in the list of shirt sales during the period, with an average of 1-1.2 million shirts sold per year over the four year period.

Barcelona's market share could well have improved over the past year, however, following the Catalan's club's conquest of the Champions League at the end of the 2007-8 campaign, its subsequent triumph in the World Club Championship at the end of 2009 and the conquest of its second consecutive BBVA Primera Liga title last season.

Barca can also count on the services of Leo Messi, the best player in the World and has eight members of the World Cup winning Spain side in its squad.

Dr Peter Rohlmann, who compiled the study explained why the figures were drawn up over a four year period rather than year by year.

"Teams and shirt providers do not publish yearly sales figures to avoid oscillations that sporting success or failure or the signing of a new star player can produce," he told sports paper Diario AS.

Real Madrid first team shirt currently sells for $71.92 US dollars on the official club website.