Anyone know where I can pick up some adidas referee gear, particularly shorts here in the US? I found this site in Germany called refereeworld which has some nice stuff, but the shipping is very expensive and the Euro exchange rate doesn't help. I don't really like the stuff OSI makes. Thanks
refereeworld is the only place I have found. It would be hard to find adidas uniforms that will meet USSF requirements though, even at refworld. There is another German site allzwecksportartikel or something, but shipping is still sehr teuer.
Hansport in British Columbia lists adidas Precision referee jerseys and shorts. I haven't ordered from them so don't know about shipping, service, etc. https://secure.featureweb.com/hansport/productlist.asp?type=Soccer
I know I won't find an adidas jersey, but I am primarily interested in finding comfortable, nice looking shorts. I did a little more digging and found that EuroSport (i.e. www.soccer.com) also has the adidas Precision shorts for something like $40 which is not so bad, but the model they have at refereeworld.com look like nicer.
They give out an adidas uniform to referees selected for a regional youth final. Maybe you can contact someone from Region I to find out where they get the uniforms. The problem with the shorts is that the pockets are small and there is only one back pocket. They are comfortable though. An ex-international ref I know picked up a bunch of the old pin-striped adidas shirts somewhere in Germany last year on the cheap. I haven't seen those on the net for a long time unfortunately because the shirts looked pretty comfortable.
I'm almost certain those come straight from Adidas, as do the balls, corner flags, banners, etc., that are used for regional and national USYSA events. They are given to--and not purchased by--the regions; that's why we're forced to wear them unless they almost match one of the teams. Finding the shirts would be difficult--and almost pointless, as was mentioned. However, the best bet for Adidas referee shorts is probably an Adidas outlet. Not sure how to go about finding the nearest one to you, though.
I wrote directly to adidas customer service to ask them and they were clueless. I ordered some from www.soccer.com which they say are special order and come direct from the manufacturer. I looked at my nearest adidas outlet but they mainly just sell "fashion" stuff there and some shoes as well as some clearance of things that didn't sell well. They don't really stock their full lines of merchandise there, and certainly not anything specialized like ref gear.
I think that's true about all outlets. They're hit or miss. It's mostly a random assortment of stuff they made to much of or lower quality stuff specifically made for outlet stores. Outlet are certainly not worth making the trip to in order to find a particular item.