Football: Most fans don’t like LionsXII’s home kit

Going by the ongoing poll here at Red Sports (see below), most fans don’t like the new home kit the Singapore LionsXII are playing in by a factor of 2 to 1.

While covering the Singapore LionsXII’s 1-2 loss to Kelantan as a photographer, I was sitting next to two AFP photographers pitch side. One was overheard asking his colleague: “Singapore in red or white?”

Very fair question.

After all, the whole stadium is wearing red, but the LionsXII were wearing … white. And to top it all off, our very first opponents, Kelantan, were wearing red.

It must have been a Homer Simpson “D’oh!” moment for fans when they first laid eyes on the home team.

“Why are we all dressed in red when the home team is wearing white?”

Singapore football fans have been used to seeing our national team play in all red at home and so naturally expect the LionsXII to also sport an all-red home kit.

Since there doesn’t seem to be any official reason for the colour combination, the only reason we can come up with is that the home kit is like the national flag, except upside down — white on top, red at the bottom.

Or perhaps, simple commercial reasons are at play.

Red is the corporate colour of SingTel, a telecommunications competitor of StarHub. StarHub, with its green corporate colour, is the principal sponsor of the LionsXII and its branding is on the front of the LionsXII jersey.

To have an all-red home kit may just make StarHub go all … green.

Jeannie Ong, StarHub’s senior vice president and head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, clarified that the home kit colour was a decision between the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) and Nike.

“FAS and Nike chose the colour of the jersey, not us. We have no influence, whatsoever, over the jersey,” said Jeannie.

“StarHub does not have an issue with the colour red, especially since it is the national colour of Singapore. We were even prepared to put our logo on a red jersey. In case you are not aware, we even went red with our logo on all our press ads and TVC on National Day 2011. Singapore, our nation, should always come first,” added Jeannie.

Anyway, never mind the jersey colour.

Win your games, and you can wear all pink with blue polka dots.

Lose, and fans will wear angry red.

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