New shirts always divide fanbases, but Manchester City’s third shirt has united their fanbase… they all hate it.
The shirt, unveiled on Wednesday, is a dark shade of navy blue with numerous Manchester City badges printed on it in a very light shade of grey, from afar they aren’t visible. The white ‘Etihad Airways’ sponsors is printed in the centre.
But that is where the normality ends as there is no stitched badge anywhere on the shirt, instead ‘Manchester City’ is simply typed along the front of the shirt.
The shirt is one of several that Puma has produced in this style this year, using a similar template of badges replaced by names. AC Milan, Marseille and PSV all have similar styles.
But, despite the shirts awful reactions, there has been a lot more controversial shirts around the world. Here are our top five, all divisive for different reasons…
Cameroon (2002)
More a basketball top than a football shirt, the Cameroon shirt divided the footballing world with FIFA.
The board ruled that the team could not wear the shirt at the 2002 World Cup because it had no sleeves, despite it being worn at the Africa Cup of Nations earlier that year – and they won wearing it too.
The top had everything you would expect from a Cameroon strip, the traditional green shade, the hints of red and white, the unique font.
The Indomitable Lions added black sleeves to the top so that they were able to compete in South Korea, they proved to be a bad luck charm as Samuel Eto’o and co were knocked out in the group stages.
Barcelona (2015/16)
When you think of FC Barcelona, you think of the likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Ronaldinho all wearing the customary red and blue vertical striped shirts. But in 2015 the club decided to say good riddance to tradition.
The club decided to go for horizontal stripes for the first time in 115 years in a bid to drive up shirt sales when they make changes in the future.
Of course, the shirt was hated by the Barca faithful. They simply could not understand why the club had taken their traditional shirt and flipped it on its head.. well, 90 degrees.
If Barca wanted to drive up shirt sales for the future then they missed the mark with the 2016/17 shirt too, opting for a checked design.
Colorado Caribous (1978)
Colorado Caribous lasted for one year, 1978, before moving to Atlanta to form the Atlanta Chiefs. It is fair to say their existence is easily forgotten, but their shirts certainly are not.
Besides monstrosity and abysmal, there aren’t too many words strong enough to describe how shocking this strip was.
The Western-style shirt was brown, cream and tan, it had a nice, wide neck and darts-shirt style sleeves. But that’s not even half of it.
The shirt had a leather hem around the entire centre of the shirt with a tasselled fringe. It should never have even crossed anyone’s mind to put that on a shirt, but here we are.
Cardiff City (2012/13)
For a club nicknamed the Bluebirds, it is only logical for Cardiff to have a blue kit, right? No, according to Tan Sri Vincent Tan and Dato Chan Tien Ghee.
The pair majorly invested in Cardiff and decided to rebrand the kit to give the club a more international appeal, changing the badge too from a bluebird to a red dragon – very Welsh.
The straight swap from a blue home kit to a red one caused a lot of controversy. And to add insult to injury, the traditional blue was used for the away kit.
Supporters united to form a ‘Keep Cardiff Blue’ campaign and try and get the marketing decision reversed but their efforts were unsuccessful.
After several seasons in a red home shirt, including a Premier League promotion season, Cardiff went back to a blue strip.
Norwich City (1992/93)
One of the most controversial shirts in Premier League history. Norwich City donned a shirt that looked like it had been plastered in… bird poo.
The Canaries kept their traditional yellow and green colour scheme, but rather than using the two shades to produce a sleek, professional-looking shirt, they produced this hideous yet iconic shirt.
The yellow shirt was covered in green and white splatters, hence the nickname ‘bird poo shirt’.
However, the kit didn’t stop their from success in the league as Mike Walker led them to a third-place finish, the highest in their Premier League history.
