Major American sportswear manufacturer Nike unveiled the English National Team’s official kit for Euro 2024 earlier this month, ahead of the team’s two friendlies against Brazil and Belgium. However, one small element had fans, former players, and even leading conservative politicians baffled.
On the back collar of the jersey, Nike has changed the traditional red-on-white St George’s Cross to a new, purple-pinkish cross.
Many in the British national media, including the Daily Mail and The Sun, dubbed the new flag design ‘woke’. However, please note that Nike’s official explanation for the peculiar design has nothing to do with LGBTQ activism, institutional racism, or any other typical progressive agenda points. Instead, Nike claimed that
they gave the St George Cross a ‘playful update’ to pay tribute to the 1966 World Cup winning English side.
The new colour scheme is inspired by the training kit the 1966 team wore during the World Cup. That victory remains the only major trophy the English team has ever won (after beating West Germany 4–2 in the final after extra time, with Geoff Hurst scoring a hat trick), so it is no surprise that those players are still held in very high regard.
Still, changing the colours of the national flag evidently caused quite a bit of controversy.
Even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the ruling Conservative Party spoke up against the design, saying: ‘When it comes to our national flags, we shouldn’t mess with them because they’re a source of pride, identity, who we are, and they’re perfect as they are,’ as quoted by the BBC.
National Team head coach Gareth Southgate also weighed in on the issue. However, he took a more measured approach, saying:
‘If the debate is about the St George flag needing to be on the England shirt—because, obviously, it hasn’t always been—I think the most important thing that has to be on an England shirt are the three lions, it’s our iconic symbol…I guess, what you’re really asking is: should we be tampering with the Cross of St George? In my head, if it’s not a red cross on a white background, then it isn’t the Cross of St George anyway.’
Some former English internationals, however, were not so subdued in the criticism of the ‘reimagined’ national flag.
Former Nottingham Forest and Southampton goalkeeper Peter Shilton, the most capped England player ever with 125 appearances for the National Team, told British media that he is ‘totally against’ the flag redesign on the jersey. Another former goalie and English international, David Seaman, reportedly said: ‘It doesn’t need fixing. What’s next, are they going to change the Three Lions to three cats? Leave it alone.’
Meanwhile, former England National Team head coach Harry Redknapp went as far as describing the flag redesign as ‘an absolute disgrace’.
The new jersey certainly did not help England with their preparation for Euro 2024, as they lost their first friendly 1–0 against a Brazilian side coming into the game in a historically bad form; then tied Belgium 2–2 in their second friendly game.
Wokeism in English Football
This kit controversy, as we wrote above, is not directly tied to ‘woke’ activism within football. It is most likely the bright, unusual colour scheme of the flag that reminded many of the rainbow imagery, these days mostly used to promote gay pride and acceptance, that made the connection in many people’s minds—as well as some past events.
Most notably, players in the English National Team and every English Premier League club
used to ‘take the knee’ before the kick-off of every game,
as a show of stand against racism, a gesture that came directly from the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Thankfully, that practice has been mostly abandoned. When English football returned from the COVID lockdowns in the summer of 2020, all PL clubs even had the writing ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ on the backs of their jerseys in lieu of the players’ names.
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