Arsenal have decided to celebrate the connection to their African supporters with the release of their new 2024/25 away kit. Despite many fans seeing this kit months ago due to the annual leaks that emerge leading up to the new season, there has been plenty of talk about the reasoning behind the design.
The club have confirmed the black, red and green features from a pan-African colour palette while the zig-zag graphics seen on the shoulders and lower torso are designed by Labrum London founder Foday Dumbuya. Previous leaks had iterations of the shirt without these and their inclusion was received with mixed reviews.
As a personal fan of darker kits, with the 2022/23 black and gold away shirt being a favourite and perhaps the greatest Arsenal shirt of all time in my view, the news of a new black kit dropping was exciting. I, like others, was sceptical at first but perhaps more than any other have found my view changing in a short space of time, especially with the work done in the launch of the video.
The messaging and link to the African continent is great. Seeing Nigerian striker Nwankwo Kanu in the video was a great touch, his shirt is also seen in the finishing shot of the video as Gabriel Magalhaes, Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber stand with Labrum London’s designer.
In the same shot behind Kanu’s shirt are also the number 12 shirt of Cameroonian defender Lauren and the number 17 shirt of his fellow countryman Alex Song. Rachel Yankey, a former forward of the club of Ghanaian descent on her father’s side, is also featured in the video.
What really sells the shirt to me is perhaps what isn’t seen so prevalently in the promotional video however and instead when going to order the shirt. The Arsenal font used in cup competitions and the Champions League features the Labrum design again with zig-zag patterns on the letters and number.
