Arsenal have confirmed that the men’s first team will wear an all-white kit in the 3rd round of the FA Cup for the second successive season as part of an expansion of the ‘No More Red’ initiative.
Launched this time last year in conjunction with adidas, the initiative aims to help keep young people safe from knife crime and youth violence.
It’s an uphill battle. According to Metropolitan Police data, there were 65,733 knife crime offences between January 2018 and December 2022 and a 14.8% increase in 2022 compared to 2021.
The Gunners first sported the white strip when they were beaten 1-0 at Nottingham Forest in January 2022 and will wear a slightly tweaked version against Oxford United at the Kassam Stadium on Monday night. Arsenal Women will support the initiative by wearing ‘No More Red’ training kits prior to their crunch WSL game against Chelsea on 15 January.
The club have reiterated that supporters won’t be able to buy the kits but can earn one by volunteering their time to support one of 10 designated charity partners. You can learn more about that here.
Arsenal in the Community will also provide funds to help redevelop a football pitch in Islington and has pledged to champion young role models in London communities and to develop further social action projects.
Freddie Hudson, Head of Arsenal in the Community, said: “Last year we were proud to launch No More Red with adidas. It provided a unique opportunity to highlight almost four decades of our local community work that has helped to keep thousands of young people safe.
“Throughout 2022, we worked in our local area with adidas, and our charity partners to build on our support for young people by providing more high-quality safe spaces to play sport, access to trusted role models and to shine a light on the positive work being done across our community.”
NICE
I think this is pure class
Just hope we win in it this time…
Yep, my thoughts exactly. This kit and message deserves a better performance.
No Tavares throwing his gloves at the dugout to worry about, but I daresay Cedric will feature, which will give us plenty to
laugh atworry about.We are accepting looking like Spurs for a match, that is how classy we are for a cause.
An all white strip is more Real Madrid than that joke shop up the road.
This is the jersey which sealed djed spence career to be an trophyless one !
Hahaha
That long ago?
sp*ds are a constant source of joy tbh. can you imagine someone who scores as many goals as Kane going through his whole career without a trophy? incroyible
No more Djed.
Djed’s dead, baby. Djed’s dead.
I hope it doesn’t bring us back luck like last time…
It wasn’t the kit.
It was the team having an off day, Tavares being exceptionally shite and Lacazette shitting himself when presented with a diving header that any self respecting professional player would have thrown themselves at.
Check out ‘All or Nothing.’
Mikel is not screaming at the white kit. It’s the guys wearing it.
Love it
Can I suggest that if we buy Mudryck that – in time – he may be used in the attacking left 8 role for certain games that suit. That could be incredible although I would miss Xhaka if that happened, but he’d still be available from the bench. Therefore you’d get:
Ramsdale
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchencho
Partey
Odegaard. Mudryck
Saka. Martinelli
Jesus
🤘
I’m sure they will take your request under consideration. I will email arsenal.com for you, asking them to pass this information to Mikel Arteta, and I’m sure we’ll see your tactical acumen put to effect on the pitch soon.
The jinx colour!
When was the last time we wore the pink kit?! (A. Bournemouth away)
Will Chel$ea unveil their new greenback shirt?
As soon as they get the owners wallet back
The funniest thing Chelsea did recently was pretending to be all down with Ukraine when the war broke out. Hypocrisy stacked on top of hypocrisy.
Bring back all red too.
Not this again. I mean the initiative is fine, but do we have to wear the damn spurs kit?
Yeah why does it have to be white? The message is great but I don’t like the negativity around red.
I think to get us talking about the initiative. The kit needs to be sufficiently different to make us and the football world discuss it. No more red / no more blood, it makes sense for a campaign of this nature. It’s a good cause, be proud! COYG!!! (even if u are in all white)
I really don’t like those white shirts, but I do like the ideas behind them, they were unlucky last year so I hope for a better result this time.
Again, great campaign, would have been nice if Adidas had produced a kit in the same cut/template as the home kit though (ie with a collar and shirt furniture in the same position etc). Feel having a home shirt with the red ‘removed’ rams home the message more than a generic white kit with white branding.
Would also stop the trend of ‘shirt enthusiasts’ and counterfeiters creating versions of this kit, without any real regard for the message the club are charity parters are trying to achieve, by buying a stock Adidas kits and printing white logos on them.
The kits aren’t for sale, as blogs says.
I know they’re not for sale, however over this last year I’ve seem more than a few fans wearing last years campaign kit at the stadium. A quick search on social media will find people bragging about buying counterfeit versions from China or shirt enthusiasts/sellers re-creating the kit using generic stock Adidas shirts and adding custom vinyl cut logos. I doubt anyone selling or buying those fakes are actively involved in efforts to help reduce/prevent knife crime in London.
I’m writing this after having seen the game on TV. While I salute the reason for the change, I thought the actual kit was awful. Would it have been non-kosher to make the numbers actually visible?