FIFA Orders Croatia to Change World Cup Kits
Croatia’s red and white checkerboard kits are distinctive. It turns out they also have been illegal. Proving that it has nothing better to do with its time, FIFA has ordered Croatia to alter the design of its kits before the start of the World Cup. FIFA demanded the change because the Nike-made kits had 30 per cent more white on them than allowed under the federation’s rules.
Hard to imagine someone actually went to the trouble to measure the amount of white on a football kit, but those crazy kids at the FIFA castle in Geneva did exactly that. It was probably the same person who spent amazing amounts of time compiling the official uniform requirements documents.
A marketing representative for Nike explains how the company has changed the kits to comply with these critical regulations:
“The two rows of squares are added to the part of the jersey that is tucked into the players’ shorts,” he said. “The new strip has already been sent to Germany.”
I’ve said all along that the Croatia kits are among the worst in the tournament and now you know my reason why. Now that they have gotten rid of that extra white space I might just add them to the list of best dressed teams.
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Comments
By Milan | June 2nd, 2006 at 6:02 am 
Absolutely ridicules, how can Fifa rule on something like that? It amazes me how far Fifa will go to show off their authority and power over the games. Football is a sport not a fashion show, so why should Nike and Croatia go through all of the trouble of changing the contrast of the kits when to the human eye doesn’t change a thing to look of the kit.
Bob have you at least seen our away kit, it looks much better then most of your top five and that includes the Saudi Arabia entry. Im shore you will recive more positive emails if you stop insulting our Kits lol.
Posted from 
Australia
By Crno Gorac | June 2nd, 2006 at 7:33 am Worst kid in history. There Euro 2004 one and the away one are alot lot lot better
Posted from Australia
By Aldo | June 2nd, 2006 at 7:57 am Do you remember Brazilian Goalkeeper Claudio Taffarel??
Do you remember that FIFA banned him for wearing XL gloves???
Well, the gloves were one more size that the allowed by FIFA. Among the warning that if used on the final game of WorldCup’94 he’ll be banned, his sponsor REUSCH take the responsability and paid the fine.
Interesting lerning approach about marketing and gloves by FIFA.
Cheers,
Aldo
ps: can you picture a player wearing 15″ boots being suspended ???
Posted from 
Uruguay
By mj | June 2nd, 2006 at 8:27 am I think the kits do what they are supposed to do. Distinguish a country and Croats kits do just that. Just like Brazil has thier yellow trademark collor which you can distinguish amongst thousands to is the Croatian checker board. It is very distinctive and everyone knows it is Croatia playing when they see it. I think their kits are great and FIFA is ridiculous
Posted from 
United States
By Croatian Jersey-gate - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Croatia World Cup Team Blog | June 2nd, 2006 at 9:09 am [...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave aReply [...]
Posted from United States
By Joel Dossoumon | June 2nd, 2006 at 9:21 am what’s the rationale for defining a certain percentage of white on a kit?
Posted from 
Ghana
By Eric | June 2nd, 2006 at 9:22 am I think these are beter than some of the games I have officiated where you have a jersey (pick your color) and a team wearing the same colors with a few white stipes combined. It takes a little bit of time to get use to looking at the jerseys but even that is fairly easy to tell apart from on the field which is the pupose of the rule. These are very distinctive uniforms and should be easy for the official.
This is just publicity stuff for FIFA and Nike.
Posted from United States
By Official FIFA Video Guide to Ecuador - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Ecuador World Cup Team Blog | June 2nd, 2006 at 9:26 am [...] When not measuring the whiteness of uniforms, sometimes FIFA puts out videos of the World Cup teams. [...]
Posted from United States
By chuck | June 2nd, 2006 at 9:36 am Ridiculous.
I’m partial to the checkerboard pattern — my favorite college (American) football team, Tennessee, is known for having that pattern painted in their endzones.
“Gee, I wonder which of these mostly-white jerseys is Croatia’s?” is a question you just won’t here from fans that have a cursory knowledge of the sport.
Their home kits are fully distinguishable from both every other team in their group, as well as from their own away kits (which are also cool), so what’s the problem?
Could Paraguay be next?
[Channeling Marlon Brando in Apocolypse Now] The horrah! The horrah.
Posted from United States
By Tomislav | June 2nd, 2006 at 10:08 am The Saudi Kit is almost completely white… How do the get away with it?
Posted from Australia
By arcturus | June 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 pm Is it just me, or does the Croatian checkered kit remind anyone of the packaging of a certain dog food brand?
Posted from 
Mexico
By Down | June 3rd, 2006 at 8:46 pm Grow up.
Posted from 
Canada
By mesiko | June 11th, 2006 at 2:27 pm FIFA AND KKK ARE THE SAME
Posted from 
Croatia
By Class | June 16th, 2006 at 9:21 am Wooooo…!!! Look how powerful FIFA is! That is silly. How can the percentage of a kit be a problem?
Posted from 
Indonesia
By Ricardo | June 18th, 2006 at 5:12 pm Just Ridiculous!
And what the hell was that other law with the fans clothes? Now a supporter can’t choose his own clothes?
By eduardo da-silva | August 17th, 2007 at 7:42 am tell you whats ridicules,ive just read about croatia,there is an advert selling international football shirts above the croatia article,but when you click on it you cant buy a croatia football shirt.
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By serbwarrior | April 11th, 2008 at 12:58 am Croatia deserved it because of their racist overtones and neo nazi fans.
They openly support the ustashas and it is so obvious in their emblem.
Good work FIFA!
Posted from 
Singapore
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