The clothes and kit worn by football players is governed by a section in the Laws of the Game. Under Law 4: The Players’ Equipment, players on a football team must all wear five specific items of clothing. The first is the football shirt, which has to have sleeves although they can be of any length. The second item is a pair of shorts, although goalkeepers are permitted to wear tracksuit bottoms instead. Third are the socks, which must be long enough to cover a fourth piece of equipment, the shin pads. These are to be made of a rubber or plastic material, or something along the same lines that offers a “reasonable degree of protection” from potential injury.
The fifth and final piece of equipment all football players must wear is simply recorded as footwear. Contrary to what you might expect, players do not actually have to wear the studded football boots you see most of them in, although obviously the vast majority still choose to. All players are actually permitted to wear gloves if they so wish, although it’s rare for any player except the goal keeper to do so. Nowadays most goal keepers wear special goal keeping gloves to help them in their position.
In terms of uniformity, all players on the team have to wear the same kit with some minor exceptions such as the goal keeper’s tracksuit bottoms. The captain of the team must wear a small armband in order to distinguish him from his team mates.
The goal keeper is required to wear a shirt that contrasts with other players. When playing another team, Law 4 states that “the two teams must wear colours that distinguish them from each other and also the referee and the assistant referees”. Hence most teams have a second kit in a different colour to their primary one. If two teams playing each other would be wearing similar or identical colours, it is the away team that must change into their alternative kit, hence the term away kit.
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