We have to talk about…Belgium’s sudorific soccer jerseys at Euro 2024

Adidas’ Belgium home kit has given new meaning to the word sweatshirt. But why was it such a hot mess?

(Last updated 27 June 2024)

Introduction

At Euro 2024 brand exposure is highly competitive. Arguably, the most prominent branding opportunities comes from being the official kit supplier to the 24 qualifiers. With nine kit deals, Nike has the biggest share, which is fitting considering they are the world’s leading brand in athletic footwear and apparel, and the world’s most valuable clothing brand in general.

In terms of scale, Nike has a higher global revenue than both its main competitors, adidas and Puma, put together. The brand value of Nike reached over $53 billion in 2023. In comparison, the adidas brand was valued at approximately $16.6 billion (Source: Statista March 2024)

Together, Nike and adidas, who have six kit deals, provide kits for almost almost two thirds of the Euro 24 teams. The rest are supplied by four companies: Puma have four deals, Joma and Macron have two each, whilst Hummel have one.

Of course, getting maximum exposure and return on investment also means backing the teams most likely to progress beyond the opening rounds, and those teams that have the biggest global fanbase.

A hot mess

I’ve watched most of the games at this year’s Euro’s and something that really caught my attention had nothing to do with the football, the players or the refereeing, it was all about Belgium’s jerseys. At the time of writing, the Belgians have played twice and both times they wore the same home strip, a burgundy-coloured shirt made by adidas.

What quickly stood out about this kit was that in next to no time the Belgian players looked like they’d just stepped straight out of the shower, their shirts were soaking wet, clinging to their skin and turning a darker shade of burgundy. This made little sense as their opponents — as well as other teams wearing adidas tops — didn’t appear to have the same issue.

A most absorbing game

After watching Belgium’s second game it was clear, that what I’d witnessed during their opening match wasn’t just a one-off. If anything, their shirts looked even wetter, none more so than Romelu Lukako whose shirt was literally drenched and clearly heavy with sweat — the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be.

I tweeted about this at half time and immediately noticed how many people were interacting with my tweet, way more than I usually receive on X. Here’s what I wrote:

“What’s going on with Belgium’s adidas shirts? Isn’t the fabric supposed to wick away sweat, not make the players look wetter than Rishi Sunak? They must be absolutely horrible to play in!”

My interest piqued, I decided to see if I could find out more about the material adidas used and went to their official site where the Belgium home kit was on sale for an eyewatering £120.

Ironically, their blurb contained the line:

“All with moisture-managing engineered fabric, to keep fans comfortable as the action heats up.”

It also stated the jerseys were made from 100% recycled polyester, adding that being a synthetic blend, the polyester itself is blended with other materials to create athletic wear that is light, breathable, and moisture-wicking.

Using the information I found, I posted a second tweet:

“Despite being made from 100% recycled polyester, adidas claim their shirts Heat.RDY technology will ‘keep you feeling dry and comfortable.’ I doubt any of the Belgian players would agree!”

Watching the second half, the contrast between the two teams was stark, not just in their football ability, but in their shirts. The Belgian team looked like they’d all come out of a sauna, with their burgundy shirts (officially known as ‘Team College Burgundy’) absolutely drenched, while the Romanians showed no signs of sweat whatsoever.

Now we all know what it feels like to wear a wet shirt, it clings to you, it’s clammy, you can’t move freely and it weighs you down. In short, it’s really uncomfortable, so much so that all you want to do is dry off and change into something loose and dry.

The only conclusion you could make was that far from enhancing the players performance, these adidas shirts were doing the precise opposite of what they were supposed to. I was amused later when I saw the BBC Sports’ headline which read:

“Belgium beat Romania in absorbing game.”

It certainly was, especially for the Belgian players, forced to endure the discomfort of wearing their sweat-sodden shirts.

The question you had to ask yourself was how can an experienced company like adidas allow this to happen? Not only did the Belgium shirts perform terribly, but they also looked terrible, which for a company that relies on fans to buy their shirts for leisurewear, is quite literally a very bad look.

Searching on social media for other people’s comments on the Belgian shirts, wasn’t straightforward as there’s no obvious subject to search for. But with a little perseverance, I managed to find quite a few tweets that confirmed I was not alone in wondering what was going on. Here are just a selection:

“Why do the Belgium players all look so wet and Romania do not? Something with their shirts? Can someone explain? Odd.”

“They had to use some different type of polyester for the Belgium shirts than they use for other countries, because all the Belgian players looked like it was literally raining at the stadium.”

“What did adidas make these Belgium shirts out of? They’re not wicking sweat at all. Players basically wearing weighted vests.”

“Belgium need new shirts, their players are melting right through these ones LOL”

“If Lukaku squeezes his shirt he can water this whole pitch.”

“Jesus Adidas Football sort your Belgium shirts out. They all looked like they’d been swimming!”

“Is there something about claret or burgundy material? Why are Belgium’s shirts absolutely drenched?”

“Belgium have already won the award for sweatiest shirts at Euro 2024.”

“Belgium’s shirt seems to be the sweatiest shirt in football history!”

“Belgium winning the wet t-shirt competition! Adidas have you forgotten how to make sports shirts?”

“Bloody hell! I thought adidas was one of the best sports brands. There ain’t no sweat evaporating from these Belgium shirts!”

“These Belgium shirts seem to have a real sweat-repelling issue.”

“The Belgium shirts look awful the way they they soak up the sweat.”

“These Belgium shirts look dreadful when drenched in sweat”

“Those Belgium shirts are more sweat than shirt now!”

“Were these Belgium shirts made by Castore?”

“Adidas must have attended the Castore school of manufacturing for that Belgium shirt!”

“Adidas have some wet look shirts reminiscent of the Castore Villa ones!”

“The way these Belgium shirts are sticking to them with sweat must be so uncomfortable.”

“Adidas have had an utter mare with these Belgium shirts haven’t they? Someone’s going to lose their job surely? They must feel awful to play in!”

So just what happened?

This is more than just embarrassing for adidas, a company whose own website boasts:

“We’ll never launch a product unless we consider it perfect.”

Not only have they been making football jerseys probably longer than anyone else, but this tournament is in their home country. When a product does the opposite of what it’s supposed to do and does it with this level of visibility, it’s hard to get one’s mind around what’s gone wrong and why.

To date, I am not aware of any comment from adidas. Clearly the material they’ve used for the Belgium shirts has some kind of fault. Is it limited to just the Belgium home shirt, or has it something to do with the burgundy dye? After all, Villa’s home kit made by Castore was also predominantly burgundy? Or is there some other explanation?

Whatever it may be, what I can’t for the life of me understand is how a company the size of adidas — and a German company to boot — doesn’t have the quality controls in place to prevent things like this from happening. Surely, they must put all their fabrics, as well as finished products, through rigorous testing? And remember, the eyes of the world are on the Euros and Belgium are one of the world’s highest ranked soccer teams.

Ironically, at the time of writing, adidas are currently recruiting for the position of Manager Development Apparel — Football. One of the key responsibilities of the role is to ensure that all fabrics, trims, colours, processes, and development samples are fully tested to ensure adherence to adidas’ quality and testing standards.

Damage limitation?

When I went to check on the Belgium home jersey on the official adidas site(on 24 June 2024), the seven customer reviews as well as the description, details and care information were all inaccessible.

Change of shirts

Over the years, football kits and especially the jerseys have changed enormously.

Once they were exclusively simple plain cotton shirts and the only design variations were limited to things like colour, collar and trim. The big change came in the 1980s when cotton was replaced by polyester. Artificial fabrics had appeared previously, but failed to catch on.

The UK brand, Admiral was among the first to introduce polyester shirts which proved popular with players because they were lighter than cotton and, unlike natural fibres, did not retain moisture. On the other hand, polyester is less breathable than cotton, can feel uncomfortable against the skin and makes the wearer sweat more

Visually, a major consequence of the change to polyester was the look of the material itself. Digital jacquard looms were used to create integrated designs. Initially, these were fairly straightforward such as shadow stripes, and diamond and zig-zag patterns.

This heralded a huge change in the appearance of football shirts, which would go on to feature far more complex designs, from pinstripes to the inclusion of distinctive motifs such as crowns and other items as well as the addition of accent piping in contrasting colours.

Not only that, but polyester enabled manufacturers to create shirts in a spectrum of new colours. Today, with teams changing their kits from one season to the next, there is almost no colour or shade that has not made its way onto the football pitch.

In recent years the styling of the shirts themselves have also changed. Compared with the simplistic, loose designs of the past, they have become a lot more figure hugging. We’ve also seen the inclusion of different panels, often using a different material to improve airflow.

Then there has been a profusion of technical fabrics all purporting to be performance enhancing.

And more recently, the major manufacturers like adidas and Nike have made a big thing about using recycled materials in their shoes and fabrics.

Performance technology

Adidas is one of the oldest and biggest brands in sport and is of course based in Germany where the Euros are being held.

Both they, and their biggest rival Nike, make a huge deal of the technical abilities of the materials they use, especially when it comes to sports jerseys and particularly when it comes to wicking.

Modern football shirts are of course designed to be lightweight, body formed and provide high wicking of moisture.

A moisture-wicking fabric has two jobs: one is quickly moving (or wicking) sweat to the fabric’s outer surface, and the other is drying rapidly so that the sweat doesn’t saturate the fabric.

In other words, wicking is all about the breathability of the fabric, its ability to remove moisture from the body through the material, so the fabric doesn’t cling to the skin because it gets too wet.

The two company’s have different terms for their wicking technologies: Nike calls theirs Dri-FIT, while adidas use various names including Heat.RDY. Both use these so-called performance technologies as a key marketing tool to help justify the exorbitant amounts each charge fans for the official team jerseys.

Adidas’ Heat.RDY is part of a family of fabric technology that includes Cold.RDY, Wind.RDY and Rain.RDY. Here’s how adidas describe it:

“This ingenious innovation utilises lightweight and moisture-wicking fabrics, enhancing airflow and promoting rapid sweat evaporation. By keeping athletes cool and dry during intense workouts in hot and humid conditions, Heat.RDY ensures they can perform at their best without the burden of heat.”

Adidas also has another fabric technology which they call AEROREADY which they claim is “a moisture-management marvel.” This is how they describe it:

“AEROREADY fabric effectively wicks away sweat, allowing it to evaporate quickly and maintaining a lightweight feel. AEROREADY is integrated into a wide range of adidas training apparel, including shirts, shorts, and pants. By keeping athletes dry, focused, and free from distractions caused by excess moisture, AEROREADY enables them to perform at their best.”

It appears AEROREADY is a less expensive version of Heat.RDY as it features on the cheaper fan version of the home kit, which retails for £80.

In addition, adidas also have something called Climacool, another material designed to keeps athletes cool by rapidly dissipating heat from the body.

“Climacool technology dries quickly and prevents moisture from collecting on the skin. Lightweight and durable, Climacool encourages fresh air ventilation through the fabric for a cyclical cooling experience. The process results in a dry and comfortable feel.”

With all their investment in R&D, it seems extraordinary that a company the size of adidas can produce a football jersey that is so clearly and so visibly defective.

Opened in 2010, Adidas Future Lab is the company’s research and development facility. Based at their global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, this innovation lab is the backbone of adidas’ quest for new technology. The lab uses cutting edge technology such as robotics, 3D scanning, and motion analytics with one purpose in mind: to improve athletes’ performance.

Despite this, in 2024 they have messed up on a major scale with all the world looking on. But they weren’t the first brand to suffer this malfunction.

Last season in England, Aston Villa experienced the same problems with their home kit, although that was supplied by a relative newcomer, Castore, who had only been in business since 2016.

The Manchester-based company quickly raised their profile by supplying kits to three Premier League teams: Aston Villa, Newcastle and Wolves.

However, they received lots of negative publicity due to the poor performance of their shirts, especially the Villa home jersey whose players complained it was clinging to their bodies, weighing them down and impacting performance. They said that the shirt, made up of 90 per cent polyester and 10 per cent elastane, was “saturated” and not able to absorb sweat efficiently.

It was no surprise when both Villa and Newcastle switched to adidas for the coming 2024/25 season.

Wolves also discarded Castore as they had issues with team jerseys ripping and will wear Sudu — a brand new shirt supplier — in 2024/25. And on the subject of ripped shirts…

We’ve been here before

The last big problem with football kits came in 2016 when a combination of the tight shirts and the material they used, led to numerous players shirts getting ripped at Euro 2016.

During their match against France in Lille, the shirts of at least four Swiss players were torn when pulled by opponents, forcing members of the team to swap tops three times in the first half. I remember thinking at the time that the rips looked odd because of their size and shape.

After the tournament, kit manufacturer Puma said analysis of the jerseys showed there was one batch of material where yarns had been damaged during production, making the garment weaker. Apparently, this defective batch was used only in a limited number of home jerseys for the team.

Whilst soccer shirts still do get ripped — after all, it is a contact sport — it seems to happen only rarely. That being said, I did notice that in the Belgium v Romania game Romania’s Ianis Haji had his shirt ripped, something you don’t see that often these days. By the way, Romania’s shirts are produced by Joma.

Joma

I checked Joma’s website to find out more about their shirts and learnt theirs are also manufactured with 100% recycled polyester.

The Spanish company claim their fabric, which is made from “processed plastics converted into recycled polyester thread and then into thousands of meters of sustainable fabric”, is characterised by its quality and elasticity, in addition to being very resistant and easy to maintain.

Their jerseys also include Micro-Mesh technology to provide breathability. Thanks to this fabric which incorporates small holes, sweat evaporates quickly in areas of high perspiration so the player’s body remains dry and comfortable.

What exactly is recycled polyester?

Now I don’t claim to having any prior knowledge about recycled polyester, so I did a little research.

Apparently, nearly half of the world’s clothing is made from polyester. One of the main drivers for this is the so-called athleisure trend where consumers want stretchier, more resistant garments.

As it’s made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the most common type of plastic in the world, polyester isn’t a sustainable textile option, which is why we have witnessed the growth of recycled polyester. Also known as rPET, this is obtained by melting down existing plastic and re-spinning it into new polyester fibre.

There are two ways to recycle PET: mechanically and chemically.

Mechanical recycling is taking something like a plastic bottle, washing it, shredding it and then turning it back into a polyester chip, which then goes through the traditional fibre making process.

Chemical recycling is taking a waste plastic product and returning it to its original monomers, which are indistinguishable from virgin polyester and can go back into the regular polyester manufacturing system.

As it’s the cheapest of the two processes and requires no chemicals other than the detergents needed to clean the input materials, most rPET is obtained through mechanical recycling. One downside is that through this process, the fibre can lose its strength so requiring it to be mixed with some virgin fibre.

(Source: FashionUnited November 2018)

Recycled polyester is engineered to be breathable, allowing air to flow through the threads of the fibre quickly and easily. This prevents buildup of moisture and heat, and allows for moisture wicking.

Moisture wicking relies on “capillary action,” which is the movement of a liquid (sweat, in this case) through tiny spaces within a fabric due to the molecular forces between the liquid and the fabric’s internal surfaces. Brands like adidas and Nike refine this process by engineering the structure of the yarns within their fabrics and by applying a variety of treatments to surfaces within that structure.

Postscript

I will update this article when and if I come across any relevant news. In particular, I’m looking forward to to see what shirt Belgium wear for their next game on 26 June. As they are designated the away team, and as Ukraine should be wearing all yellow, I anticipate Belgium to be sporting their ‘Tin Tin-inspired’ away kit which consist of a pale blue jersey, brown shorts and white socks. It’ll be interesting to see how that one holds up!

It turned out I was right about the kit and as to the question of how it performed, from what I could tell it appeared to be pretty similar to the home kit. Whilst I think the pale blue colour didn’t show the sweat quite as much as the burgundy shirts, the fabric clearly wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do and instead absorbed and retained the players’ sweat and clinged to their bodies.

Like Romania, Ukraine were also wearing Joma and the contrast between the two shirts was clear to see. It also confirmed, that the problem for adidas isn’t limited to just Belgium’s home kit.

About the author

Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens, not forgetting an array of automotive exotica.

On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.

He has also written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s blatant Led Zep rip-off, ‘Still Of The Night’, Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and the little known Queen track ‘Cool Cat.’

Most recently, Gary has penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ as well as ‘Believe It Or Not’ a look into the rise of fake news.

As well as reviewing a number of Brighton home games, he has also written several other football-focused articles. These include ‘We have to talk about…Man Utd’s calamity in Copenhagen’, ‘We have to talk about…Tottenham’s controversial new third kit’ and ‘Why Neville Brody’s new font for Nike Women’s Soccer doesn’t quite meet its goal.’

All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians including the likes of Royal Blood, Joe Satriani and Wolf Alice.