São Paulo’s new shirt: photos and details of the controversy | OneFootball

São Paulo launched its new home kit for the 2026 season this Wednesday (11), even after the model sparked controversy among club board members and fans.

Produced by the American company New Balance, the model was inspired by the club’s pioneering spirit in Brazilian football and highlights the idea of a “tricolor DNA.”

The new shirt will make its debut in tonight’s match against Grêmio, at 9:30 PM (Brasília time), at Morumbi, for the third round of the Brazilian Championship.

The shirt maintains the tradition of being white with three stripes in the central region, but innovates with a white border around the crest. Inside the symbol, the motto “DNA Tricolor” is inscribed.

According to board members, the new model violates the club’s statute precisely because of this white border around the symbol. Article 157 establishes some rules for São Paulo’s uniforms. It states that the three stripes must be covered by the tricolor crest.

According to the club, the uniform kicks off the countdown to São Paulo’s centenary celebrations, which will be in 2030. On the front of the shirt, there will be a commemorative badge for the Tricolor’s 96th anniversary, celebrated on January 25th.

The promotional campaign, published on São Paulo’s social networks throughout last week, highlights the club’s pioneering role in sports.

Among the achievements highlighted are the first professional football match in Brazil, in 1935; victories over European clubs in World Cup finals in 1992, 1993, and 2005; and the consecutive Brazilian Championship three-peat from 2006 to 2008.

“This is a shirt that carries the weight and strength of a history built over 96 glorious years and, at the same time, shows how much São Paulo looks ahead to new paths and challenges,” said Eduardo Toni, Tricolor’s marketing director.

“It is a symbol of the strength, adaptability, and innovation that the club has demonstrated so many times throughout its existence. This launch marks the beginning of the countdown to our centenary celebrations,” he added.

The shirt is already on sale online, through New Balance’s virtual store and São Paulo’s e-commerce. Sales in physical stores begin this Thursday (12). The uniform prices range from R$399.99 for the fan version to R$599 for the player version.

PROMISED DRAMA

As soon as some tricolor influencers received the piece through a New Balance advertising campaign, they made a point of photographing the kit and leaking it on social networks. Employees of sports stores also helped to reveal the shirt early.

The reaction was immediate. And it was as negative as possible. At first, many adjectives disapproving of the kit.

But things escalated.

Influential São Paulo board members and associates also took to social networks to draw attention to one fact: the new shirt would not comply with what is mandated by the São Paulo Statute.

One of the most outspoken voices in opposition to former president Julio Casares and certainly one of the best-known board members (also due to his role as a sports commentator on TV), Marco Aurélio Cunha was the first to warn of the alleged infraction.

The central point of the controversy is that the model would not strictly follow article 157 of the Statute, especially regarding the position of the crest and the way the horizontal red, white, and black stripes are arranged on the chest.

According to leaked photos of the new uniform, New Balance got creative and kind of interrupts the horizontal stripes on the chest, forming a sort of outline. In images leaked last month, there was no such innovation.

For Cunha and other board members, the new version mischaracterizes the traditional Tricolor home kit.

The São Paulo Statute states that the main white shirt must have three horizontal stripes, in red, white, and black, in that order, fully covered by the club’s emblem. It also specifies the width of the stripes: 5 centimeters for the red and black stripes and 2.5 centimeters for the white one.

According to the ‘Globo Esporte‘ portal, president Harry Massis was warned by board members that there may be a motion in the Council to block the kit, should it be confirmed, which is important to note.

Such changes could only be made to a third kit, which clubs generally use to break away from the traditional patterns of kits 1 and 2.

The new shirt is, so to speak, a legacy of Casares, since the new model, according to the website, received a positive legal opinion in July last year, still under the former president’s administration.

The document, signed by lawyer Guilherme Salutti, cites article 157 of the São Paulo statute and states that a “literal and extremely restrictive interpretation is not the most correct” and that the image presented as a model in the statute is “merely illustrative” and reveals that the “emblem does not need to fully cover the stripes, with margins above and below.”

PARTNERSHIP

São Paulo has reached an agreement with New Balance to renew the contract for supplying sports material to the club until 2032.

According to AVANTE MEU TRICOLOR, the agreement was already supposed to have been officially announced, but ended up being postponed due to scandals that led to the removal of two directors from Julio Casares’ administration.

At first, it is another commercial partner for Tricolor that ensures its presence at the club until 2030, the year of the centenary celebrations. Other sponsors, such as Superbet, have already extended their contracts.

The agreement between São Paulo and New Balance began in January 2024 and runs until the end of 2027.

If the renewal goes through, the agreement will have a total duration of nine years, consolidating one of the longest relationships in Brazilian football in this segment. In the case of São Paulo, if the new contract is fully honored, New Balance will be the company that has supplied the club’s kits for the longest consecutive period. Reebok (2006-2012), with seven years, is the current record holder.

Since the start of the partnership, New Balance has been responsible for producing the kits for São Paulo’s men’s and women’s teams, covering all categories, from youth divisions to the professional squad. The contract also includes the development of licensed products and joint commercial actions.

It is worth noting that this year the American brand will no longer serve São Paulo exclusively. It will also begin supplying Grêmio’s kits, which in practice means that the one-year exclusivity period for Tricolor, as stipulated in the contract, will never be fulfilled (the Morumbi club allowed New Balance to continue supplying Bragantino until the end of last year’s Campeonato Paulista).

Lucas poses with the controversial new São Paulo kit (Publicity)

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.