Why are PSG fans boycotting the new Jordan home kit?

The new PSG kit for the 2021-22 season was launched exactly a week ago and, although it has not yet made its debut on the pitch, it has already sparked controversy from the more conservative fringe of the Parisian club's fans. A couple of days ago, part of the organized cheering of Paris Saint-Germain - the Collectif Ultras Paris - gathered outside the stadium and displayed the banners reading "Rendez nous les maillots Hechter" (give us back the Hechter shirt) and "Boycott du maillots 2021-22" (boycott jerseys 2021-22). This protest stems from the fact that in next season's home kit there is no reference to Hechter design, considered a stylistic institution and an essential symbol of PSG.

The protest against PSG's stylistic choices is not new to a community that has almost 110,000 people on Twitter. A few days before the official launch of the Jordan kit, the fans wrote an open letter addressed to the Parisian management and the technical sponsor Nike, linked to Paris Saint-Germain for more than 30 years. In the letter we perceive all the love and obsession of the fans towards a visual identity that is not always respected. "A fight we will not let go. The story is written in blue, white, red, white and blue! Respect our colors. Respect our history" reads the tweet, which follows a clear and unambiguous mission statement:

"We discover with anger and indignation the official jersey of our club for the 2021-22 season. It is clear that this, once again, is not the PSG shirt. Obviously we haven't been listened to enough, so we will express our strongest thoughts. We are viscerally attached to our historic colors, the "Hechter" home shirt and the white away shirt with red and blue vertical stripes. We believe that the identity of a company passes through the respect of its traditional colors that make it stand out among a thousand. We are not in marketing, but we know that this respect is necessary for an institution as strong as the fans. We dream of seeing our players win so many titles wearing these unique colors that make our hearts beat faster.

For all these reasons we ask our members, the fans and all the Parisian people to boycott next season's jerseys and more generally not to buy a single jersey that does not respect our history. There will also be actions against the shirt until the return of our historic colors.

Together we are invincible!"

What fans miss most on the 2021-22 jersey is the design that in 1973 introduced designer-president Daniel Hechter for the first time, considered one of the founding fathers of Paris Saint-Germain. What Parisians still recognize as the "Hechter shirt" is a blue shirt with a red vertical bar in the center surrounded by two white lines. The story behind the man who invented this iconography perfectly captures the club's fashion attitude. Hechter was born into a family that is well integrated into the Parisian fashion world and in 1956 he began to develop designs that will be sold to designers such as Louis Féraud and Jacques Esterel. After designing the clothes that Brigitte Bardot wears in the film "A Parisian", in 1962 she founded the Daniel Hechter Company. It will be one of the first fashion houses to produce clothing for tennis and skiing.

He became so passionate about sports that he invested millions of francs in Paris Saint-Germain. Not losing his artistic vein, Hechter decides to redesign the team uniforms. The inspirations are mainly two: Johann Cruyff's iconic Ajax uniform - for which Hechter was crazy - and the livery of the sporty version of the Ford Mustang with the longitudinal band along the engine hood.

In the coming season, PSG celebrated its 50th anniversary and the jersey chosen by Nike was a tribute to the Hechter style. The myth and the authenticity that never sets, however, has reached 30 seasons between PSG kits with the 9 consecutive seasons from '73 to 82 before the Borelli era, the man who upset and then re-established the style of Parisians. But this is not enough for fans who would always like to see a shirt respected that knows more of a symbol than a fashion item as the PSG brand interprets it.

In the last hours from Liverpool come rumors similar to those of Paris. The Reds fans, in fact, launched themselves via social media first against the green shirt that Allison will wear already against Crystal Palace and then against the home kit, guilty of being too similar to the colors of AS Roma and not very close to the style of Liverpool . When modern style does not meet the tastes of the fans, you can really expect anything.