Fans & Kits

A kit (also known as a "strip" or "uniform") is the standard equipment and attire worn by players in association football. more...

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The sport's Laws of the Game specify the minimum kit which a player must use, and also prohibit the use of anything that is dangerous to the player or another participant. Individual competitions may stipulate further restrictions, such as regulating the size of logos displayed on shirts and stating that in the event of a match between teams with identical or similar colours the away team must change to a different kit.

Players generally wear identifying numbers on the backs of their shirts. Originally a team of players wore numbers from 1 to 11, corresponding roughly to their playing positions, but at the professional level this has generally been superseded by squad numbering, whereby each player in a squad is allocated a fixed number for the duration of a season. Professional clubs also usually display players' surnames on their shirts, above their squad numbers.

Football kit has evolved significantly since the early days of the sport, when players typically wore thick cotton shirts, knickerbockers and heavy rigid leather boots. In the twentieth century boots became lighter and softer, shorts were worn at a shorter length, and advancements in clothing manufacture and printing allowed for shirts to be made in lighter synthetic fibres with increasingly colourful and complex designs. Sponsors' logos began to appear on kits, and replica kits were made available for fans to purchase, generating significant amounts of revenue for clubs.

Equipment

Basic equipment

The Laws of the Game set out the basic equipment which must be worn by all players, specifying five separate items, namely shirt (also known as a jersey), shorts, stockings (also known as socks), footwear and shin pads. While most players wear studded boots the Laws do not specify that these are required. Shirts must have sleeves, and goalkeepers must wear shirts which are easily distinguishable from all other players and the match officials. Thermal undershorts may be worn, but must be the same colour as the shorts themselves. Shin pads must be covered entirely by the stockings, be made of rubber, plastic or a similar material, and "provide a reasonable degree of protection". The only other restriction on equipment defined in the Laws of the Game is the requirement that a player "must not use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself or another player".

Apart from the restriction placed on goalkeepers, the Laws make no reference to the colours of kits, but it is normal for individual competitions to specify that all outfield players on a team must wear the same colours. In the event of a match between teams who would normally wear identical or similar colours the away team must change to a different colour. Because of this requirement a team's second-choice is often referred to as its "away kit" or "away colours", although it is not unknown, especially at international level, for teams to opt to wear their away kit even when not required to by a clash of colours, or to wear it at home. The England national team sometimes plays in red shirts even when not required to, as this was the kit worn when the team won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. Many professional clubs also have a "third kit", ostensibly to be used if both their first-choice and away colours are deemed too similar to those of an opponent. Most professional clubs have retained the same basic colour scheme for several decades, and the colours themselves form an integral part of a club's culture.

Read more at Wikipedia.org