Nike is facing a backlash for a woke redesigning of the UK’s St. George’s Cross on the 2024 jerseys of the country’s national soccer team.
The national symbol, normally red and white, has been refashioned in red, black, purple, or pink and blue. The new colors have infuriated many who feel that Nike is instituting a “woke” nod to the LGBTQ movement and using the national soccer team to do it.
Further inflaming the controversy, Nike termed the update “playful.”
“A playful update to the of St. George appears on the collar to unite and inspire,” the company claimed with an X post on the new design.
A playful update to the 🏴 of St. George appears on the collar to unite and inspire. pic.twitter.com/lXEjXhbIJO
— Nike Football (@nikefootball) March 18, 2024
Many, though, did not find the update as much playful as an “absolute joke,” according to the New York Post.
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson, for one, slammed Nike, telling the Daily Express, “The left have a nerve to ask me why I want my country back.”
“This virtue signaling (sic), namby-pamby, pearl-clutching woke nonsense must stop. Any more of this, and I’ll be on the first flight to Rwanda,” Anderson added.
Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was also infuriated by Nike imagining it had the right to redesign the nation’s iconic symbol. Clake-Smith blasted the design, saying, “looks nothing like our flag.”
French fans display a St. George’s cross before the International Friendly match between France and England at Stade de France on June 13, 2017, in Paris, France. (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
“Maybe somebody in the design department misheard Three Lions and instead went for three lines on a shirt,” Clarke-Smith added.
British conservative leader Nigel Farage added that the uniform is “an absolute joke.”
Farage added, “it’s a multi-colored cross, it bears no relationship to the Cross of Saint George whatsoever.”
“If the England football team thinks that’s acceptable, well, why on earth, why on earth would you be apologetic about Englishness if you’re going to play for England in the European football finals? I think it’s an absolute joke,” he exclaimed.
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