The Athletic, a subscription-based sports journalism website and the sports department of The New York Times that focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis has ranked the Gambia national team’s jersey at the recently concluded Afcon 2023 as among the ugly.
In its Afcon kit rating The Athletic gave the Gambian kit 3 over 10 which falls in the category of Ugly. Mali is ranked to be among the ‘Mad’ while Ghana is considered to be among the ‘Good’.
In its review of the kit all 24 sides were wearing, the website said it discovered a mix of the plain and the outlandish, the inspired and the awful, with everything in between. On the Gambian jersey the website said: “Another one with too much going on. You’ve got your big swoosh across the chest. You’ve got your shoulder detail. You’ve got your sleeve detail. You’ve got your background pattern. Two of those elements would have been fine. Three at a push. But all of them… just pick your favourites and go with that, without trying to overdo it. Plus, for some reason this combination of colours – red, deep blue, dark green, white – doesn’t really work as a football kit. It’s difficult to explain why, and the designers were obviously hamstrung by the colours of the national flag, but it just looks a bit odd. Sorry, The Gambia”.
Reacting to this, the Director of Communications at the Gambia Football Federation Baboucar Camara said whereas he respects the opinion of the website, he totally disagrees with it.” Obviously, our jersey depicts the beautiful colours of our national flag very well designed on it and that is what is important. In fact, many Gambians disagreed with this view in reactions I saw online. Our kit is not the least ugly and I don’t think it will be reasonable to say we have the ugliest. I saw it as a light hearted story meant to add to the excitement of the tournament,” Mr Camara said.
