Liverpool’s new shirt sponsorship deal with sportswear giants Nike, worth a whopping £70m-a year starting from this season has produced a variety of kits which have garnered mixed reactions from the faithful.
The first home kit of the Nike era is a traditional red shirt with green and white collar and sleeve highlights, while the away kit continues the newly introduced teal streak laced by black highlights, described by Nike as drawing inspiration from the liver bird and the Shankly Gates. The alternate kit is simply a chequered number cast in black and red.
Soon after the alternate kit was made official by the club, the pre-match training attire surfaced on social media platforms as a leak. The kit has been widely accepted by Liverpool fans as a fresh distraction from previous bland pre-match kits, while a lot of people pointed out the shirt’s uncanny resemblance with cans of cherry flavoured Coca-Cola.
It went viral on Twitter as quite a number of fans took to the app to post the aforementioned leaked picture of the training kit alongside a can of Cherry Coke, stressing on the striking resemblance between the two: with the recurring stripes and streaks of red and black on both the kit and the can.
What a kit.
— Mak (@MakLFC) September 24, 2020
😍 pic.twitter.com/qaO01Z7211
@LFC new training top looks familiar. @CocaCola @Nike 👀👀🔴🔴 pic.twitter.com/r2seGBkAAV
— LFC KS*🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 (@Kazman9813) September 22, 2020
This Liverpool x Nike pre-match training top is FIYAH! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3Io8M5yvJy
— Watch LFC (@Watch_LFC) September 22, 2020
New LFC Nike training kit is basically a can of old Cherry Coke and I'M ABOUT THAT LIFE pic.twitter.com/DLXg0mDh4N
— Cereal Box 64 (@CerealBox64) September 22, 2020
All over this, would promote this to a playing shirt over training. £50 though is so excessive for a training top, clubs really do need to calm the f*ck down when it comes to pricing. @LFC pic.twitter.com/FTrbxTLvc5
— D E A N* (@dean0gasson) September 22, 2020
Liverpool have been on an upward curve ever since Jürgen Klopp started the Anfield revolution since his arrival at the helm, and they have peaked in recent years both on and off the field.
They have not been short on silverware recently, and the latest big-money deal struck with Nike proves that the club is also doing very well from a financial, revenue-related perspective.
And though the appeal of the kits might be subjective from one person to the other, it benefits the defending champions of England to become even more of a European footballing superpower than they already are.