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Shirt swapping or jersey swapping is a tradition in sports where players of opposing teams swap jerseys with each other at the end of a match as a sign of mutual respect.
Association football
Shirt swapping is a long-held tradition in association football.
The first shirt swap is believed to have taken place at a match between France and England on May 14, 1931; the French team lost and asked to keep the English team's shirts as a memento.
A further example took place at the 1954 FIFA World Cup.
In the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Pelé and Bobby Moore swapped shirts. Following this, the tradition spread to other individual players.
Although habitually done at the conclusion of matches, shirt swaps have also occurred at half time; examples include Mario Balotelli swapping shirts with Pepe in 2014, Eden Hazard swapping shits with Ángel Di María in 2016, and Mohamed Ali Camara swapping shirts with Erling Haaland in 2023.
Other sports
Jersey swapping also occurs in the National Football League, where it has become common since the mid-2010s, getting the tradition from association football.
During his final season in the National Basketball Association in 2018–19, basketball player Dwyane Wade exchanged jerseys after every game with a player on the opposing team.
Jersey swapping has also occurred in Major League Baseball. Joe Kelly swapped his jersey with a Mariachi musician for his charro jacket in celebration of his Mexican heritage and wore it to the Los Angeles Dodgers' championship trip to the White House following their victory in the 2020 World Series.
In Australian rules football, guernsey swapping was common in grand finals from as early as the 1940s until around the 1980s. In the Victorian Football League, this infamously meant that photographs of St Kilda celebrating its only premiership in 1966 featured captain Darrel Baldock hoisting the trophy wearing a Collingwood guernsey; St Kilda later doctored the photo to put him back in a St Kilda guernsey in murals and promotional material it created with the image. The VFL banned the captains from swapping guernseys after 1966, and the custom ultimately fell out of vogue. Decades later, long-retired players often handed swapped guernseys back to their original wearers.
Outside of sports
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Politicians sometimes swap shirts as acts of diplomacy, often before their respective teams play against each other. One instance was Boris Johnson swapping national team jerseys with Juan Carlos Varela before their countries faced each other in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Notable shirt swapping
| Competition | Matches | Players | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 VFL Season | 1966 VFL Grand Final | Collingwood vs St Kilda | 
|
|
As of 2024, the 1966 premiership is St Kilda's only VFL/AFL premiership, and there is an infamous photo of St Kilda's Darrel Baldock raising the premiership cup wearing Collingwood's Des Tuddenham's guernsey. |
| 1970 FIFA World Cup | Group stage | Brazil vs England |  Pelé
|
 Bobby Moore
|
Regarded as a symbol of fair play in association football. |
| 2022 FIFA World Cup | Round of 16 | Argentina vs Australia |  Lionel Messi
|
 Cameron Devlin
|
Shirt worn in Messi's 1000th match |
See also
References
- Suggs, David. "Why do players swap shirts in soccer? Explaining tradition of exchanging sweaty jerseys post-game". The Sporting News. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
- ^ "Football stars in search of souvenirs". FIFA. May 29, 2016.
- ^ Billy Witz (July 7, 2010). "Jersey Swaps, a Ritual That Comes With a Story". The New York Times.
- ^ "Remembering Bobby Moore". FIFA. April 12, 2020.
- 김윤주 (December 6, 2022). "네이마르의 선택은 이강인…유니폼 바꾸자고 먼저 팔 '톡톡'". n.news.naver.com (in Korean).
- Poole, Harry. "Haaland, Acerbi and the art of the shirt swap". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
- Sam Farmer (October 27, 2017). "Jersey swapping has become a thing at the end of NFL games". Los Angeles Times.
- Scott Murray (December 17, 2015). "Shirt swapping: new to NFL, but long part of soccer's rich tradition". The Guardian. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
- "Jersey swapping: NFL's new postgame craze in jeopardy". NBC Sports. December 16, 2015. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
- Bontemps, Tim (April 9, 2020). "'I wanted a chance to say goodbye': The evolution of Dwyane Wade's jersey swaps". ESPN. Retrieved March 19, 2024.
- "MVP moment? Donaldson, Vlad swap jerseys". MLB.com.
- Ardaya, Fabian. "Why Mookie Betts wants to keep swapping jerseys and expanding his horizons". The Athletic.
- "The story behind Joe Kelly's Mariachi jacket during Dodgers' White House visit". FOX 11. July 2, 2021. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
- Billy Witz (2 July 2010). "Jersey Swaps, a Ritual With a Story". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
- Alf Brown (5 October 1946). "Essendon run away with VFL pennant". The Herald. Melbourne, VIC. p. 22.
- Ant Wingard (26 June 2018). "Former Grand Final rivals rejoice and recreate guernsey swapping tradition". AFL Queensland. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
- Russell Holmesby (24 September 2019). "Five facts you didn't know about the 1966 premiership". St Kilda Football Club. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
- "Ando's Shout: Hawthorn gun Gary Buckenara hands back Carlton legend Bruce Doull's 1986 Grand Final guernsey". Herald Sun. Melbourne. 18 December 2016.
- "Foreign Secretary and President of Panama in sporting gesture ahead of the World Cup". GOV.UK. May 14, 2018. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
- "1966 and all that: Grand Final – Collingwood v St. Kilda". www.footyalmanac.com.au. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
- Chris Burton (December 6, 2022). "How Australia sub Devlin snared historic Messi shirt from Argentina superstar's 1,000th game". Goal.com.