Liverpool-Manchester United jerseys did not consider colour-blind fans
Liverpool vs Manchester United is one of the most viewed fixtures in professional football, with an average TV audience of over half a billion people. A major part of this TV audience, 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 females, would be suffering from Colour Vision Deficiency, or colour blindness as it is more commonly known.
Considering the magnitude of such an event, it is disappointing to note how many people struggled to differentiate between the two kits that the teams wore during this match.
Colour Blind Awareness (CBA), the British advocacy group for people with colour blindness, says it received hundreds of complaints after Sunday’s match, an unprecedented number. “We regularly receive complaints from TV viewers who can’t tell the jerseys apart. Recently at Southampton against Sheffield United, there were already a lot of complaints but that was topped by Liverpool against Manchester United. We spent the whole morning on Monday collecting all the messages. Never before has there been so much complaining”, said Kathryn Albany-Ward, president of CBA, on ESPN.
According to ESPN and CBA, the Premier League uses computer software to ensure that all fixtures are played with clubs wearing identifiably different colours and has recently been updated to include a “colour blind friendly flag” to ascertain the best kit combinations for individuals who are colour-blind. Consequently, the Manchester United team adjusted their kit but changed only their green socks for white ones after receiving a warning by the Premier League ten days before the match. However, the solution was insufficient. It was also unusual since United had been wearing a white-and-black change kit for the majority of games this season whenever their red shirts clashed with the home team.
TACBIS Project
Portuguese Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes himself is not colour blind but he brings the difficulties many people have in distinguishing jerseys to the attention of a large audience because he acts as an ambassador of the interest group for people with colour blindness in his homeland. Together with Olympique Lyonnais’ Jessica Silva, he is one of the two Portugese FA’s ambassadors for the TACBIS Project (Tackling Colour Blindness in Sport) developed by EFDN and delivered with the programme partners Colour Blind Awareness, Oxford Brookes University, Randers FC and the National Football Associations of Iceland, Romania, and Portugal. The goal is to identify barriers to progression for colour blind players and coping mechanisms employed by colour blind players. Together with the project partners, EFDN aims to raise awareness for colour blindness in sport and society and promote surroundings that are colour blind friendly.
Recommendations for clubs and FAs
- Choose one dark kit and one light kit for new season kits
- Use a white or yellow ball
- Try to avoid kit clashes
- Choose blue, yellow or white bibs in training
- Colour your line markings in white
- Avoid using red, green, orange, pink & dark grey cones or flags
