By Jack Douglas (@JDouglasSport)
The Huddersfield Town ‘kit’ was shocking. Its traditional blue and white stripes laid the foundations for an obnoxiously large Paddy Power logo emblazoned diagonally across the jersey like a Miss World sash.
Now, I’m not too sure on Messrs Hogg, Grant and co’s past in the beauty pageant world, but you’d assume the comical ribbon-like shirt they wore in a pre-season game at Rochdale was the closest they’d ever come to an award on their looks.
That was the whole idea behind the shirt.
A joke.
The large sponsor became an internet sensation in hours, before sponsors Paddy Power later revealed that the real kit didn’t have their name on it and was part of the bookies’ ‘Save our Shirt’ campaign; a nod to the traditional shirts of yesteryear where jerseys represented that of the club and not an airline, an online bookmaker or the f*cking Rwandan tourist board.
Needless to say, the PR stunt saw the Terriers hit with a £50k fine.
Cast your minds back to the start of August. The weather was scorching, the beers were flowing and the country was still jubilant after Ben Stokes’ World Cup final heroics.
August 1st saw Millwall be hit with just a £10k fine for disgusting racist chanting sang by supposed fans from the FA. This week England starlet Jadon Sancho threatened to quit the game after yet more racial abuse, and you only need to go on social media to see the horrific taunts aimed at Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Kurt Zouma and Tammy Abraham.
A club was fined five times as much for an oversized sponsor than a club was for racist chanting. I don’t need to remind you the staggering figure Leeds United were fined when a man stood on a public road.
This is just another sad case of how pathetic and out of touch football’s governing bodies are at the minute. Switching from the FA, you only need to hear the words Bolton, Bury or Coventry to see how shambolically ran the EFL is.
Granted, the kit was horrendous but that was the point. Yet this good-natured joke was deemed five times worse than racism.
If that doesn’t show exactly what is wrong with the game’s governing bodies at the moment, then I’m not sure what does.
Featured image via @HTAFC on Twitter.
By Jack Douglas (@JDouglasSport)
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