20 Worst Kits for the 2014/15 Season

Once again, it’s that time of the year when football clubs around the world attempt to generate some revenue from their loyal fan bases by redesigning their kits. Hurrah!

These days, it seems that every club changes their shirts every year. There will be some lovely new offerings on show in 2014/15, but there are also a few which probably should have stayed on the drawing board.

Here are 20 of the least desirable new kits from the forthcoming season. Leave your thoughts and nominations in the comments below, and don't be ashamed to admit you already own one.

20. Montpellier (Home)

Montpellier’s club colours of navy and orange usually make for an interesting kit, but the 2011/12 Ligue 1 champions’ new offering is completely ruined by having four different sponsors plastered on the front—five if you count manufacturer Nike and six if you include the additional one on the sleeve.

Obviously, a club like La Paillade needs to exploit every revenue stream possible to compete, but this season their players will look like they’re competing in the Tour de France.

This is actually a special kit to celebrate the Montpellier’s 40th anniversary, so it doesn’t even have the regular club crest. It doesn’t seem quite so special.

19. Celtic (Away)

Celtic's new third strip is a bit of a Marmite offering: you either love it or hate it.

Giving a nod to The Bhoys’ Scottish and Irish origins, it’s a deep green colour and features a tartan design.

Some might say it’s a very smart offering; others might say it looks like the kind of blanket a dog would sleep on.

18. Atletico Madrid (Away)

Atletico Madrid took La Liga and the Champions League by storm last season, and they did so wearing a handsome blue and yellow away kit.

Now, Nike have changed tack with the alternate strip, making it light grey with dark grey arrows. Not only is this much more boring, but being such a light colour with red trim and piping, it doesn't offer much of an alternative to the Rojiblancos home shirts.

Isn’t the purpose of an away kit to have something vastly different from the home shirt?

17. Blackburn Rovers (Home)

Blackburn’s new kit is a departure from previous iterations, as it features a much lighter shade of blue than we have come to expect from the Lancashire side in recent years.

However, the weaker blue hue isn’t the main issue with this shirt—it’s the cringeworthy video they used to launch it. Take a look at Alan "Birdy" Birkbeck’s “date” and see if you are any more inclined to give Venky's your money for this garment.

16. Millwall (Home)

Compared to recent efforts, Millwall’s simple navy blue home shirt is not too bad. The simplicity of the design makes it even more classy.

However, that class is immediately rescinded by the slogan printed on the nape of the neck: “LET EM COME.”

In their hurry to pay tribute to their famous terrace chant, the Lions have even forgotten to add the apostrophe to “em.” The only thing worse than a short slogan is a grammatically incorrect one.

In previous years, Millwall have had “We Fear No Foe” and “No One Likes Us” in much larger letters, so it could be worse.

15. Leicester City (Home)

Leicester will be making a welcome return to the Premier League in 2014/15, and their new outfit may seem a little familiar. That’s because the colour, collar design and gold Puma logo are identical to that seen on the Italy national team strip.

The Foxes don’t win points for originality or the giant sponsor logo, which cheapens the whole look. In the promotional shot (above), Gary Taylor-Fletcher is either bamboozled by the new shirt or terrified of the gigantic fox behind him.

14. Arsenal (3rd Choice)

When Arsenal are on the road and their first two choices of outfit are deemed inappropriate, they will pull this on.

The Gunners have have employed various types of blue back-up shirts over the years, but none with diagonal stripes that clash quite as violently as these.

The addition of lime green piping doesn’t do it any favours, neither does Olivier Giroud’s uneasy expression in the promotional photos.

13. Borussia Moenchengladbach (Home)

Borussia Moenchengladbach have sported some rather nice shirts over the years, not least the strip they wore in 1974, when they began a three-year period of Bundesliga dominance. 

That kit is the inspiration for Die Fohlen’s new offering from Kappa, which features green and black vertical stripes fading into a gradient lower down.

Sadly, it’s not a patch on the retro design—perhaps because of the huge clashing yellow Postbank sponsor. It looks like something that was rejected by a Brazilian league side.

Their away option isn’t much better either.

12. West Brom (Home)

In 2012/13, Adidas caused a kerfuffle when they replaced Southampton’s traditional red and white-striped shirt with a predominantly red shirt featuring feint white pinstripes.

The German apparel brand have pulled the same trick on West Brom for the forthcoming campaign, eliminating the chunky blue stripes but adding blocks of blue on the sleeves and sides.

Many fans have expressed their concern with the new strip, arguing that it “doesn’t look like West Brom."

Apparently anticipating a negative reaction, Adidas have already said the club will switch back to a more traditional look next season, per Footballshirtculture.co.uk.

So why change it in the first place?

11. Cardiff City (Home)

The main problem with Cardiff’s latest strip is the same problem they endured last year: it is red.

To rub in the fact that the Bluebirds are still blue about not playing in blue, the away strip is, er, blue. Which means that a blue strip purchased from the club is no longer a protest—it’s helping to line owner Vincent Tan’s pockets.

The Welsh side will start life in the Championship with a slightly cheaper-looking version of last year’s home strip, made by Cosway sports, a company owned by Tan.

10. Pumas de la UNAM (Home and Away)

Mexican side Pumas always seem to have a large version of their feline logo across their shirts—here they are looking mildly ridiculous in 1976.

When Nike started manufacturing their shirts for the 2014/15 season, they knew they would have to include this unusual design feature. The home shirt, however, is now a shiny gold colour.

It looks like something Ironman would wear to the gym.

9. Real Madrid (Away)

Real Madrid’s latest attempt to recoup some of the extraordinary amounts they spend on midfielders is the all-pink away kit they will be wearing in the 2014/15 campaign.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a pink kit—it can look quite natty when Palermo wear it—but this particular hue seems quite gaudy. It's basically the colour of Barbie's car.

The design also has a subtle star pattern on the front, which is also quite naff.

8. Cowdenbeath (Home) 

This season, Scottish Championship side Cowdenbeath will be turning out in an uhlsport home shirt that looks like something your local U-15 side might have worn in 1989.

The addition of asymmetric white rectangles is not a great look for a shirt that looks pretty cheap already.

Cowdenbeath are nicknamed “The Blue Brazil,” but there’s not much flair on show here.

7. Charlton (3rd Choice)

Charlton Athletic’s third-choice kit next season will be a bright orange and yellow concoction. You might say it looks like a tequila sunrise. You might even say it looks like a Catalan sunset, which reminds us—this kit looks awfully familiar. Where have we seen it before?

Tolo Ramon/Associated Press

Ah yes. This exact design didn’t look good when Barcelona wore it two seasons ago, and it doesn’t look good now.

This bright hue might have made some sense on the Costa del Sol, but it will seem a little out of place on a freezing cold Tuesday night in Middlesbrough.

6. St Mirren (Home)

Scottish Premiership side St Mirren traditionally play in demure black and white stripes. Kit makers Carbrini, however, have radically altered the design by making the stripes much thinner and adding bright yellow trim to the sleeves.

To top it off, Carbrini’s parent company JD Sports have added a huge black and yellow crest on the chest.

It looks like a magic eye puzzle—stare at it too long and you will probably get a headache.

It's quite possible The Buddies are attempting to make their opponents feel unwell with this offering, in which case more power to them.

5. St Mirren (Away)

There will be some terrible shirts in Scotland in 2014/15, but the only one worse then St Mirren’s home kit is their away one.

This alternate strip sees The Buddies’ traditional home black and white stripes melting into an all-yellow ensemble.

Evidently, the garish designs of the 1990s are back in a big way in Renfrewshire.

4. Liverpool (3rd Choice)

Liverpool caused quite a stir in 2013/14 when Warrior Sports released a third kit that many presumed to be some kind of cruel joke. 

Warrior have pulled yet another gruesome creation out of the bag for the 2014/15 season, which sees black and grey horizontal stripes bisected by a red diagonal sash. It’s how a pelican crossing might look if it was painted by a very drunk person.

Clearly, Warrior Sports delight in producing daring designs—why else would they make these hideous boots—but it’s really hard to imagine anyone actually exchanging money for this garment.

3. Club Deportivo Lugo (Away #1)

You might not have heard of Spanish second division side CD Lugo, but they’re doing everything they can to change that with this novelty kit.

Lugo is found in the Galicia region of Spain, where Octopus is a local delicacy. Naturally, this means that one of their new strips has a giant red tentacle wrapping across it.

This kit, sponsored by a local brewery, appears to be a one-off produced for pre-season encounters, so you may not see it on the field.

Rumours that the goalkeeper’s shirt has eight sleeves are unfounded.

2. Club Deportivo Lugo (Away #2)

CD Lugo decided that one outrageous kit design simply wasn’t enough, so they’ve also produced a garment that looks like a giant pint of beer, in tribute to their boozy sponsor.

According to Football-shirts.co.uk, this design and the aforementioned octopus one will only be worn during the pre-season. They already played in the beer shirt and won the game 3-0, so perhaps they may decide to play under the influence in the regular season.

1. Cultural Leonesa (Home/Formal Evening Wear)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

The Spanish lower leagues appear to be a hotbed of terrible kit activity, and this effort comes from third division side Cultural Leonesa.

As you can see, the club from the northern province of Leon have attempted to class up the joint with a tuxedo look from Danish manufacturer Hummel. Talk about putting the "culture" in Cultural Leonesa!

Unfortunately, the tux shirt is less James Bond and more embarrassed groom-to-be on his stag weekend.

Just look how delighted the club officials were when they revealed this one.

Find me on Twitter @RyanJayBailey