Off colour kits

There is the home shirt. There is the away shirt. But have you ever heard of the neutral ground shirt?

With all the good football being played, it seems sacrilege for anyone at all to go on about something as trivial as football kits, and finding no other banner by which to justify this discussion, I’ll label this as an official FIFA bashing piece. It’s about time we saw one of these anyway – I promised many of our readers FIFA bashing and I’m determined to deliver.

Determined is the word – FIFA seem determined to do one thing this world cup. No, it’s not stamping out diving, or the tackle from behind. FIFA seem determined to stamp out the home kit from this world cup. Take this morning’s Brazil v Japan game for instance. These are examples of Brazil and Japan’s respective home kits.

No clash there?

Apparently, there was. Brazil was required to wear their away shorts (white, Japan’s home shorts) and Japan in turn were made to wear their away shorts (blue, Brazil’s home shorts)! Where is the sense in that?



It just looks like… like they got their kits mixed up in the changing rooms. It’s not even as if there’s any precedent to this kind of decision – take hallmark world cup moments, Brazil v Italy and France, both of whom wear, as Japan do, blue shirts and white shorts.



No clash there, right?

No, no problem then. So why a problem now? And none know it better than Holland and Italy, neither of whom has yet been allowed to wear their full home kits after three games.

Holland v Argentina was an obvious one. Holland’s home kit is orange shirt, white shorts. They’ve played Argentina three times at the world cup, and these are two of their encounters.



Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Well, FIFA seem to think those white shorts are now too confusing, and Holland were made to run out for the third game in a row wearing all orange.



Italy v Ghana was another similar case. Italy’s home kit is blue shirt, white shorts. It’s been that way since the first world cup. Ghana’s home kit is white shirt, black shorts. No apparent clash? No, in fact, FIFA have also endorsed this colour combination in the past, whenver Italy played Germany, who wear the same colours as Ghana. Here’s one from a previous world cup final.



But when the Group E sides clashed, look what happened? Ghana were forced into white shorts, and Italy were forced into blue shorts.



it doesn’t make sense! There is absolutely no rationale behind these decisions, especially not after the precedents set at prior world cups. Now I know there are those among you who couldn’t be arsed if the teams took to field wearing pagoda singlets and ah pek shorts, as long as they don’t clash and they play good football. But national colours are symbols of identity and objects of pride. Italy and Holland, wearing all blue and all orange, don’t look like the great Italian and Dutch teams of the past, they look like generic footballers in Maxis ads wearing cheap generic kits.

There are regulations in the sport that govern change of kits, that’s fine. Where there is a legitimate clash, teams change kits around, usually to an away kit. But for reasons other than a legitimate clash, FIFA should really get their hands out of this trivial but meaningful aspect of the game, stop regulating kit clashes like Nazis and pay more attention to the real problems in the game. Because right now, there is absolutely no sense whatsoever in the way they make these proud world cup teams mix and match their wardrobe. It makes an absolute mockery of the pride of a country’s traditional colours, and for my money, FIFA have ruined one aspect of the game.

I can only imagine that the major kit makers, Nike, Adidas and Puma must be absolutely furious with what FIFA have done to their designs. Brazil looked like clowns wearing yellow and white, and in the big money world of commercial football, kit giants Nike will not be happy at all that their flagship team look like that on air. And for the Dutch and the Italians, after the millions Nike and Puma pour into launching, marketing and branding their respective teams, they deserve to feel extremely upset with FIFA when their teams on the field bear little semblance to the ones in the marketing campaigns.

The folks in FIFA have no clue how to do football. They absolutely don’t. They’ve already proven that they can’t get the footballing matters right – refereeing standards, inconsistent rules in the game, etc. Now, they’ve gone and squeezed their name all over the cake of embarrassment with neon pink cream with this kit change joke.

The football will still be good, I’ve been very impressed with the quality of this world cup. And for those of you to whom that is all that matters, I’m surprised you’ve read this far. But it matters to me. And when the final rolls into town, and when the pictures are beamed forever into televisions, captured forever on photographs, etched forever in memories, don’t be surprised if all our favourite teams all look, if only somewhat, off colour.

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