Walsall football kit confusion for colour-blind fans

Colour-blind fans watching Walsall's match against Swindon Town were left unable to tell the teams apart thanks to a clash in the colour of their kits.

Walsall played in an all-black strip while Swindon wore red.

To a colour-blind person, both sets of players seemed to be wearing a near-identical dark-grey kit.

To most of the 7,786 fans at the game, the teams would have looked perfectly normal, like this:

But assuming a 50-50 gender split at Saturday's game, statistically 324 men and 19 women in Swindon's County Ground would have been affected by the kit clash.

Their view of the game could have looked more like this:

The charity Colour Blind Awareness said it's "very disappointing to see a colour-blind kit clash so early in the new season."

It pointed out: "The FA/UEFA guidelines ‘Colour Blindness in Football’ were issued in 2017 and clearly show all-red kits are difficult to distinguish from all-black kits for large numbers of colour-blind people."

An update to the EFL's colour blindness kit clash policy in 2022 meant home teams can wear their away or third kit to make it easier for colour-blind fans to differentiate between teams.

It also allowed clubs to 'mix and match' elements of kits - such as wearing shorts which aren't the same colour as their shirts.

The EFL said it now plays an active role in helping spot potential kit clashes but said this is "guidance rather than a mandatory requirement" for clubs.

Colour Blind Awareness said "it’s now up to clubs to take responsibility for their own actions and how their decisions affected their fans, players and sponsors."

The charity said 5% of elite male footballers are colour-blind, roughly equating to one in every squad.

It said kit clashes can have an effect on players' performance.

It said: "We can’t understand why Walsall’s kit supplier, Macron (which has received training from us in how to avoid this) has designed an all-black kit with red logos/branding making their own and the club’s logos as well as the main kit sponsor’s name (Poundland) practically invisible to a large number of colour blind people."

Macron and Walsall F.C. have been approached for comment.

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