Cameroon

Home; 2002/03

Despite ending their twenty-year partnership in early 2019, Puma and Cameroon will always be remembered as creating two of the most controversial kits in modern football. So controversial in fact, that FIFA banned both of them. I’m happy to say I now have both of those shirts in my collection as they truly are an infamous part of the history of football kits, be it club or national. First came the sleeveless shirt, which was introduced for the 2002 African Cup of Nations in Mali. Puma say that having observed the players rolling up their sleeves in training to help stay cool in hot African conditions, the design team decided to work on creating a sleeveless shirt to be worn in games. Sure enough, they produced what I believe was the first sleeveless shirt to be worn in an international game. And seeing as Cameroon went on to win that ACN, becoming the first team in thirty-seven years to successfully defend their title, you can argue the shirt did exactly what it was intended to do and produce those marginal gains that modern sports coaches talk so much about. There is also no doubting that Puma used this shirt to make a statement, admitting themselves that their use of kits with smaller teams was a good way of getting publicity without having to pay the big money to secure contracts with the more powerful football associations. However, FIFA felt that the lack of sleeves was a breach of their definition of a football shirt. For the World Cup later that summer, Cameroon were instructed to add sleeves and to get around this, Puma added some ultra-lightweight black “sleeves” which were worn under the shirt and kept the look and feel not being attached to the vest. Interestingly, in 2003 the Cameroon ladies wore the vest with red underneath.

For a shirt that was so ground-breaking, it often found found on lists of “Worst Kits Ever”. To me, that must be a result of people mixing up innovative with ugly. But ignoring the lack of sleeves here, the design itself is solid. The shade of green is nice, the badges or both the FA and the Indomitable Lion (which gives the team its nickname), are embroidered and the collar and cuffs are detailed with the remaining flag colours. I don’t know if it was intentional, but the stitching which runs from the bottom to the armpit is the shape of the Puma logo used on the side of their football boots. It’s a clean, simple design which is probably what was needed when you are altering the shirt so dramatically by removing the sleeves.