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Sportswear retailers have warned England's failure to qualify for the Euro 2008 football championships is likely to hit their sales.

In a statement today Sports Direct, the country's biggest sporting goods retailer, said its earnings for the full-year are expected to drop following England's disappointing loss to Croatia last night – with the result barring the team from the key tournament.

The company had said in September it anticipated limited growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the year to April 27th 2008.

But Sports Direct stressed today: "As England have not qualified for the 2008 European Football Championships, the company can no longer be confident of achieving that level of financial performance and believes at this stage that pre-exceptional EBITDA for the current financial year is likely to be below that achieved in the last year."

Meanwhile Umbro, the official sponsor of the England team, has warned its replica kit sales are likely to be hit following the result at Wembley.

The company, whose board recently agreed to a £285 million takeover by US rival Nike, previously warned sales of replica jerseys over the summer had been disappointing and said today demand had continued to weaken.

Commenting on the potential impact of England's failure to qualify for next year's European tournament, Umbro stressed: "The effect on 2008 revenues, though still unclear, will be more pronounced due to a substantial reduction in our expected sales volumes for the new away jersey."

The company said the situation underlined the importance of its strategy to pursue growth in branded products and international markets.