The Problem With Template Kits

While the Leicester kit is, branding aside, virtually identical to the blank Adidas template, it is actually the 2019/20 Leicester City pink away kit, released a year later, that serves as a much worse template kit. To understand why, we have to go back to 1990, when Adidas released the now-iconic West Germany kit (seen below on the left) ahead of the 1990 World Cup. The kit was so iconic in fact, that Adidas decided to bring out an updated version of the design for Germany (seen below on the right) ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

What no one knew at the time, was that Adidas would turn this updated design into a template kit for teams around the world to adopt. They called this new template the ‘Campeon 19.’ Campeon (campeón) translates from Spanish to English as ‘champion,’ which makes Campeon 19 a rather bizarre name for a design which, although altered, is still distinctly German, as opposed to Spanish. The description on Adidas’ website of the blank Campeon kit (seen below on the right), refers to the design as “a subtle reinterpretation of an iconic '90s design.” This is simply untrue because subtlety does not sell football kits, nostalgia does. In other words, Adidas did not design Germany’s 2018 home kit to see if anyone noticed the updated design. They designed the kit to make people remember the elegance and nostalgia associated with the original. The description goes on to call the design an “understated tribute,” which putting aside the fact that Adidas described their own product as understated, it is certainly not. By morphing and then overusing a beloved and classic kit design as a template, Adidas are actively degrading the impact and recognizability of the original. Therefore, as a tribute, Adidas are not doing the original 1990 design justice.

However, the misuse of the design not only takes away from Germany but also Leicester, who let’s not forget sported the Campeon design on their 2019 pink away kit (seen below on the left). As a result of the design’s lack of subtlety, most football fans will look at the kit and not be thinking about Leicester City Football Club. Rather, people’s minds will go to Germany, perhaps even the great West Germany side that won the 1990 World Cup while sporting the original design. According to The Sun, one Leicester fan had this exact reaction to the kit, saying that it “looks like someone put a red sock in the wash with the German 1990 World Cup shirt.”

On February 5th, 2020, football fans received the news that they had been craving. Upon a Liverpool supporter’s tweet, complaining about “Nike's templated bulls**t,” Senior Director of Global Communications at Nike, Heidi Burgett responded; announcing that Nike were “ditching the templates” (seen below on the left). Burgett explained that “Nike designers had 65 chassis options available to them … [and as a result] each team’s look will be its own.” In other words, Nike will now allow clubs to mix and match the elements within a bespoke kit design, in a process presumably similar to that seen on video games such as Pro Evolution Soccer (seen below on the right).

While Nike is moving to eradicate the concept of template kits and give more design power to clubs; Adidas is not softening their stance. “We really discourage clubs from coming at us with an exact design because it may not fit with that seasonal direction we talked about … We want to make sure we have a design inspiration that lives across all jerseys,” Adidas senior license manager, Riley Mahoney said in an interview with The Athletic.

Due to the recency of Heidi Burgett’s announcement, it still remains to be seen how successful Nike will be in their new ‘no template’ approach. Yet, template kits might not even be such a terrible thing. The logistical purpose of template kits is to save time for kit suppliers like Adidas and Nike, who work with hundreds, if not thousands of teams, and when deployed well, no one should be aware that any given kit is derived from a template. Nevertheless, Adidas’ use of the Campeon 19 design demonstrates the subpar job they are doing with their template kits, and is arguably one of the worst uses of templates in football history.