Brazil nixes red World Cup jersey amid political outcry

The head of Brazil’s football federation on Tuesday said he had nixed the much-derided idea of the national team wearing red — the color associated with the ruling leftist party — in the 2026 World Cup, which will take place months ahead of elections.

The controversy emerged back in April in a press leak that the national side would don red shirts made by Nike for its away jersey in the tournament next year.

Red is the color of the Workers Party of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, while supporters of right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro tend to wear Brazil’s traditional colors of green and yellow at political rallies.

Samir Xaud, president of the Brazilian Football Federation, told SporTV Tuesday that he had ordered a halt to production of the red jerseys.

He said people’s political persuasions got caught up in the debate over the away jersey color. The team’s home jersey is yellow with green trim.

“Blue, yellow, green and white are the colors of our flag and these are the ones that must be used,” said Xaud, adding he himself was against the idea of a red shirt, but not for political reasons.

Nike accepted the decision to halt production and began to make a blue shirt as the away jersey, said Xaud, who took over his post in May. Production of the red one began under his predecessor, Ednaldo Rodrigues.

When word of the red jersey first came out, renowned sports columnist Paulo Vinicius Coelho wrote that the decision showed a lack of “political sensitivity.”

“Even more so because the party that has dressed politics up in yellow could confuse it with the color of another party,” he wrote.