Nike has sparked outrage this week after it announced the men’s England football team’s official 2024 home kit. If you thought wokery could not get any worse, it just has. The new shirt features a flag on the back of the collar. However, it is not the traditional St. George’s flag as the horizontal line has been changed from red to purple, navy blue and pink in what is clearly a homage to the LGBT rainbow. The England squad will officially wear this on Saturday when they face Brazil in a friendly and will continue to wear it throughout the 2024 Euros.
Nike claims that this is a “playful update” of the St. George’s flag on the collar and it is meant to “unite and inspire”. Not everyone agrees, obviously, including several former England players. There have been calls to boycott the new shirt, with #boycottNike trending on X. David Seaman, the former England goalkeeper who made 75 appearances, said: “It doesn’t need fixing. What’s next, are they going to change the Three Lions to three cats? Leave it alone.” Rishi Sunak has condemned it and even Keir Starmer has given it the thumbs down:
I’m a big football fan, I go to England games, men, women’s games. And the flag is used by everybody, it’s unifying, it doesn’t need to change. We just need to be proud of it. So I think they should just reconsider this and change it back.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the away kit, on the inside, features an even more multicoloured St. George’s cross with hues reminiscent of the trans flag and the brown and black lines added to the Pride flag to represent ethnic minorities.
The St. George’s flag, a red cross on a white background, has been associated with England since 1190 when it was adopted by our ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet. The England football kit has predominantly been red, white or both since the team was founded in the 1880s. Apparently, Nike was inspired by the training kit worn by England’s World Cup winners in 1966 and that is its reason for “updating” it. But it’s clear to anyone with eyes that it’s a nod to the Pride flag.
To pour salt into the wound, the U.S. company has also announced the prices of the kits: for adults it’s a staggering £124.99 and for kids it’s £119.99. This has risen by £20 in just four years. It gets worse. Even the ‘stadium’ version, which is not the real kit, is £84.99 for adults and £64.99 for children. We all know what happens to brands when they go woke – and with these prices it seems determined to be in bankruptcy court by the end of the year.
Needless to say, the virtue-signalling company has doubled down, stating it will not change the jersey. I wonder if it’ll turn the flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into a rainbow to coincide with it hosting the 2034 World Cup? Don’t hold your breath.
Jack Watson, who’s 15, has a Substack newsletter called Ten Foot Tigers about being a Hull City fan. You can subscribe here.
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