With little over a month remaining before the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, the hype train is chugging along at full steam.
Sportswear brands such as Nike and Adidas are wrapping up their various kit rollouts, and the host nation itself will soon begin dropping promotional content.
Aside from this, new details regarding the spectacle are arriving at a rapid pace, from stadium overviews to the existing list of banned activities, there’s plenty to learn for travelling fans.
The event will bring many firsts for the World Cup, including the schedule which is vastly different from its predecessors.
On the more bizarre front, the Qatar World Cup perhaps became the first such event to release the uniforms of stadium security personnel in a rather ceremonious fashion, with the announcement being reminiscent of those done by professional football clubs.
The team in charge of maintaining order at the venues now have their own custom badge, along with 3 separate outfits assigned for different units, which fans online likened to home, away and third kits.
The ‘home’ variant or ‘General Security’ uniform goes all black with a thin checkered stripe running horizontally through the centre, perhaps a nod to Qatar winning the rights to host the World Cup back in 2010.
The ‘away’ variant or *ahem* ‘Riot Police’ uniforms are padded up the wazoo, with numerous layers to ensure maximum physical resistance from pyrotechnics, stones and other such obstructive elements.
They also get a neat accessory in the form of a black shield, fit for days where bashing becomes a necessity.
And finally, we have the ‘third kit’ or ‘explosives detection’, probably the only kit we’d be glad not to see, well aside from the awful USMNT white strip, albeit for different reasons.
The kit appears to be a thick jacket with beige all over, and there’s certainly no skimping out on the pockets.
The colour choice could possibly be a reference to Qatar’s most abundant commodity, sand. And of course, the camouflage potential is just an added bonus.
Safe to say, the organizers have pushed out some really sharp threads for the security personnel, something we can’t say for Nike and the teams they’ve disappointed.
