When news reached us that Serie A had moved to ban green football kits over the weekend we immediately thought this had to be some kind of wind-up.
Like so many fans of Italian football, our first thoughts immediately turned to clubs with proud histories in vibrantly verdant shirts like Sassuolo and newly-promoted Venezia.
Surely Serie A’s suits couldn’t be serious?!
We grew-up admiring the colourful combinations of kits on display in Italian football and have been pleased to see the positive strides taken to protect the sartorial elegance of the competition in recent seasons.
Whilst we can support dictates harmonising the placement of sponsors’ logos, news that outfield players would be “banned” from wearing primarily green colours from the beginning of the 2022-23 season seemed like a step too far.
Had the move been about aiding the visibility of approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women in the world who are affected by forms of colour vision deficiency, we might have understood.
Yet Serie A’s move was instead geared towards TV audiences who have apparently been finding it harder and harder to tell the difference between moving footballers in green kits and erm . . . that’s right . . . grass.
Despite the hyperbole, the clue that this may all just be a major misunderstanding came in the use of the word “primarily” and so it transpires that kits featuring another dominant colour will not fall foul of these restrictions.
Equally, the specifications do not seem to cover home or goalkeeper kits, giving hope to fans of lower-league Italian clubs like Avellino, that one day their green shirts may grace the grounds of Serie A’s elite.
This does mean that barring any challenge or climb-down, we have seen the last of green as a fashionable change colour for the likes of Napoli, Fiorentina, Lazio and Juventus.
Whether we’ll ever see the Italian national team reprise the colour of their popular renaissance shirts again is another matter entirely.
As Kermit the Frog once lamented, it’s not easy being green.
Sartorial Soccer 