Sunderland's new home kit for 2025/26 leaked online - with a potentially unpopular change
Sunderland’s new home shirt for the 2025/26 Premier League season appears to have leaked ahead of its official release.
Sunderland’s brand new home shirt for the upcoming 2025/26 Premier League season appears to have been leaked online ahead of its official release – with a new image circulating on social media showing the front of the new jersey.
The new leaks appear to contradict prior reports which suggested that the club’s home shirt would feature a ‘fractured’ stripe pattern, amid reports that the shirt had to be redesigned due to Premier League rules, and also sees a popular change from the away shirt abandoned…
What Sunderland’s home shirt for the 2025/26 season will look like – according to leaks
The image which has circulated on social media has not yet been verified but shows a more traditional take on the classic red and white stripes, with thin bands of grey patterning running down the white stripes.
The shirt also features a black, red and white striped v-neck collar and a centred club crest – which, unlike the popular blue away shirt, is the club’s official badge rather than a much-loved alternate shield design.
Many fans had hoped that the new badge would appear on all of the club’s kits for the coming season, but they seem set to be disappointed, with the home shirt returning to what remains Sunderland’s primary logo.
Hummel’s kit manufacturer’s logo appears directly below the club badge, which is picked out with a black border. The photo doesn’t show the kit with the insignia of the betting company which will serve as their front-of-shirt sponsor for the 2025/26 season.
Why the back of the shirt may have been changed
Although the back of the shirt isn’t visible in the photo, it has been suggested that the kit had to be redesigned to have a large white box on the back to comply with Premier League rules which require players’ names and numbers be clearly visible.
That doesn’t mean that the kit sold to fans will necessarily have the white box rather than stripes right the way down the back, however – Brentford’s home kit for the new season, which also uses the same basic design template, will be sold with stripes on the back while the players’ version features the box format to ensure that the rules are abided by.
Whether that’s the case for Sunderland remains to be seen, but if a redesign was necessary after the club’s promotion via the Championship play-offs, then that may explain why photos of a different shirt had circulated earlier in the summer – or, of course, one of the leaked designs may be a fake, a recurring issue with kit leaks.
The absence of the redesigned club badge may perturb some fans more, however, with the blue away shirt, which has already been released, seemingly proving very popular with Sunderland supporters.
The club’s new home kit, whatever its final design, is set to be released this week, with the club teasing an official launch date – Friday 25 July. We’ll find out which of the leaks prove to be true at the end of the week.