Nike's designed St George's Cross on the back of the collar of the new England shirt at St. George's Park, Burton upon Trent, England, on March 22,. England's new men's soccer team shirt is out and it's causing a bit of a stir.Mike Egerton/The Associated Press
Just a couple of years ago, politicians had two choices when it came to anything vaguely political happening in sports – go along with it meekly or really lean into it.
If a guy on skates or in shorts said it, it must be true. There should be calls for immediate action (though the acting rarely panned out).
It didn’t seem weird to anyone that when doling out responsibilities in our society, the role of moral pivot would now be ceded to high-school-educated jocks (as well as actors, musicians and a hodgepodge of internet loudmouths).
Maybe it had something to do with the average pro’s deep remove from the concerns of real people. They had the utopian vision and can-do spirit that could turn us all into a winning team.
The idea never made sense, but like anything, it takes a minute to start rolling it back. Also like anything else, the reaction to the silly idea is often sillier.
This week, England went bananas over a badge on a soccer uniform. The uniform will be worn by the England men’s team at this summer’s European championship. The manufacturer is Nike.
Per tradition, Nike wanted to change the jersey just enough that everyone who owns the old one would suddenly feel uncool and be forced to shell out a packet to get the new one.
The new uniform looks pretty much like the old one but for one detail – a small, brightly coloured St. George’s Cross on the back of the collar.
Nike called this a “playful update” meant to honour a similar colour scheme of the training kits worn by England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team.
What they actually mean is something that might appeal to teenagers, streetwear aficionados and other hypebeasts looking to wear something ironically.
The St. George’s Cross is red on white. Everyone knows that. You don’t put the Stars and Stripes on a U.S. jersey in pink and purple and call it “playful.”
A couple of years ago, had it been noticed at all, this sort of thing would have acted as a call to order. Leftists over here defending what looks a little like a Pride flag, and the idea of change. Rightists on the other side yelling about tradition.
In the next few days, there would have been a run on the jersey as it became a haberdashery pole star. Show the people which side you’re on, even if you hate soccer. Especially if you hate soccer. That’s how Nike sells jerseys to both sides of the culture war.
The usual screamers on the right did object, which made the design an issue. So far so good.
But the second man into the fight wasn’t another screw-faced cable TV warrior. It was Keir Starmer, leader of the British Labour Party.
Starmer has as much rizz as a rutabaga, but he’s leading in the polls. That means it’s time to start surprising people.
In an interview with the reactionary Sun newspaper, Starmer had a thought about playfulness. He doesn’t like it.
“I’m a big football fan. I go to England games, men’s, women’s games. And the flag is used by everybody. It’s unifying. It doesn’t need to change,” Starmer said. “So I think they should reconsider this and change it back.”
By zagging when he should have zigged, Starmer wrong-footed the ruling Conservatives. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tried channelling Clint Eastwood – “When it comes to our national flags, we shouldn’t mess with them” – and couldn’t manage it.
A few England players piped up for the uniform, but were ignored. The adults in Parliament were talking and they had all agreed – the new uniforms were an affront.
Even the England manager, Gareth Southgate, a man so middle-of-the-road he could side hustle as a white stripe, didn’t get it.
“It is presumably some artistic take which I am not creative enough to understand,” Southgate said, sadly.
A few people tried to point out that one thing about the new kits really is shocking – their price. The top-tier replica shirt is £124.99 ($214) for adults and £119.99 ($206) for the kids’ version.
How big are these kids?
You can get a Team Canada hockey jersey without the name plate on sale for half that. Compared to a soccer jersey – a flimsy thing that anyone with more than 8-per-cent body fat should think very hard about wearing out in public – a hockey sweater is a three-piece suit.
British politicians are currently pushing the Football Association to create a ‘sell by’ date – a guarantee that the uniform will not be updated before a certain date. That way, the Christmas present you get little Billy doesn’t get disappeared into a sock drawer by summer.
Unlike the move to disavow the design, that effort has not yet elicited an apology from Nike.
Later in the week, the press went on high alert after a young star, Harvey Elliott, popped his collar during an England under-21 game so that the cross was not visible. Was this a young person raging against the machine?
They came down off Defcon 1 when it turned out Elliott has always liked the James Dean look. He just doesn’t do it with his current team, Liverpool, because its uniform doesn’t feature a collar.
The whole episode has now fizzled into a sort of embarrassed silence, as everyone tries to keep some powder dry for the Euros. Then they can yell some more.
By then, it will seem even more ridiculous to be fighting over a shirt, especially in this context.
It’s sports. It doesn’t matter. With extremely rare exceptions, the people in it have no clue what’s going on in the actual world. They do not speak for – or represent in any meaningful way – the man in the street. If anything, they speak for and represent the guy up in the corner office. He is their true peer.
The upshot to all this is a resumption of what was once considered normal operating service in the sports end of the culture wars. The athletes are apathetic, the politicians on every side are roiled and the general public neither understands what’s going on nor cares.
When it comes to tradition, this is the sort everyone can get behind.