Counterfeiting: a global day focused on sport

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Jun 10, 2016

The 19th edition of the global day for Anti-Counterfeiting took place June 8. This year the day fell half way between the French Open and Euro 2016, giving rise to a focus on counterfeit sporting goods.
 

Counterfeiting results in the loss of some 500 million euros and costs around 2,800 jobs each year in the European Union. Add to that approximately 150 million euros worth of missing tax revenues in the United States

France, who produced 800 million euros worth of sporting goods, which represents 15% of the total production of goods in the European Union, has seized 7.7 million counterfeit articles in the past year. Of the total loot, 460,000 were fake sporting goods.

"Sport abides by strict rules and 'fairplay', notions which totally escape the unscrupulous producers of fake products, those who do not hesitate to steal the rights of companies and their products," said Christian Peugeot, president of Unifab. "It's essential that consumers be conscience of this."

Counterfeiting represents up to 10% of global business and costs around 40,000 jobs each year in France, as well as 2.5 million across the G20 region including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the U.S.

In 2015, the fake goods market was worth some $1700 billion.