Chelsea unveil sponsorless 2023-24 home kit

Chelsea’s attempts to secure shirt sponsorship for next this season continue to hit various roadblocks — be they Premier League rules, fan backlash, or just a general lack of interest in giving us £40m for a year — and so we’ve decided to unveil next this season’s (home) shirts without any sponsor at all.

Talk about a throwback! Doesn’t get much throwback-y than a shirt without a sponsor! Put one of these on Osgood’s statue!

Speaking of which, this year’s effort from Nike is clearly inspired by the 90s, specifically the 1997-99 home shirts from Umbro, which similarly featured white underarm panels and a black and yellow trim on the sleeves. (Those shirts had a far superior collar however, and were made classic by on pitch success.) The club’s teasing on social media over the past week has been heavy on the late “90s thing” vibes as well, with Nintendo Gameboys, Nokia cellphones, and original iMacs.

Anyway, I’m not a huge fan (the collar is just extremely boring for non-athletic applications) but I do dig the gold badge and swoosh.

Not that I could buy it even if I had wanted to: they won’t be available until August 16 (August 23 online), by which point we’ll hopefully even have a sponsor to put on the front of it.