England’s Chelsea football club has presented the renewed design of its away kit, featuring a white polo jersey with blue and red stripes on its collar and sleeves. The designers admitted that the source for their inspiration was the mod subculture that dominated King's Road, a major street going through Chelsea, in the 1960s.
Our 2019/20 away kit is here! 🔥 #ItsAChelseaThing
— César Azpilicueta (@CesarAzpi) July 17, 2019
Do you like it? #KTBFFH pic.twitter.com/ijmLcDp42O
Most of the club's fans found the new kit amazing and agreed with the club's description of it as looking "sharp" and being a true "Chelsea thing".
Chelsea is CLASS 💙
— 𝓡𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓸 (@SW3CareFree) July 17, 2019
Absolute beauty💙👍👊
— DADDY YUSRO (@lanstech4) July 17, 2019
But some netizens took the change in a negative way and used the predominantly white colour of the shirt as a pre-text to take pot shots at Chelsea fans ending up in racist scandals from time to time.
Racism #ITSACHELSEATHING
— 👨🏼🦲👌🏼 (@BALDOZIL) July 17, 2019
Plus it’s pure white representing the clubs inherent racism
— Psycher (@htmwc) July 17, 2019
Numerous Twitterians, however, saw quite a different message in the new away kit's choice of colours, which strikingly resemble the Russian flag.
Chelsea’s new away kit has the Russian flag everywhere. pic.twitter.com/IrrWkD3HkQ
— Niall ㋡ (@niallmoran_) July 17, 2019
Lol that's literally a Russian flag on the collar 😂😂
— Victorframpton2 (@victorframpton2) July 17, 2019
Russian flag?🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🤔🤫🤫🤫😅
— Renat Rashitovich (@RenatRvich) July 17, 2019
Some of them took it as an extra reminder that the football club has been owned by a Russian businessman for some time now.
Russian club 🇷🇺
— Kirasin Kirill (@KirasinKirill) July 17, 2019
One netizen apparently even saw the "hand of the Kremlin" in it…
— Alex Gillott (@alexgillott) July 18, 2019
Russian businessman Roman Abramovich secured Chelsea's ownership in 2003 for around £140 million. Despite investing over a hundred more million pounds in it, the club didn't bring in a profit for nine years, but after that started turning a profit.
At the same time, the club has seen a rise in its results on the playing field over the last two decades, securing five league titles and the UEFA Champions League crown, as well as in other prestigious championships.
