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Manchester City have launched a competition where fans can submit AI designs. The winning entry will adorn the club’s third kit in the 2026/2027 season. Is this a good idea, or perhaps worthy of charge 116?
It’s safe to say Premier League fans, generally speaking, aren’t totally loving Manchester City at the moment.
Between the alleged 115 breaches of Financial Fair Play rules and manager Pep Guardiola’s manic reaction to his outfit’s dodgy form, there’s a feeling among the so-called ‘traditional’ top six clubs that the league is ‘healing’ and that City’s questionable dominance is subsiding.
The latest marketing push from the club hasn’t exactly gone down a storm, either. Even City fans are calling for a semblance of common sense.
Manchester City launch AI kit competition
The season after next – 2026/2027 – Manchester City will be wearing a third kit featuring an AI design created by a fan.
The competition, which was created in collaboration with Puma, centres around a custom generative AI platform on the club site which allows users to decorate a blank kit with all manner of colours and patterns digitally rendered from text prompts.
Examples shared online range from minimalist designs with subtle patterns and colours, right through to mock-ups featuring space cats and designs that resemble the ‘magic eye’ posters of the psychedelic 70s.
A user can make a maximum of two submissions before the deadline of December 20th and there are 15 single use tokens to play around with.
The goalkeeper kit, which always diverts from the rest of the team line-up, has already been created by first-team skipper Ederson, and backup Stefan Ortega. It features a green background and large football net pattern. Very original, lads.
Your imagination is your tool 🫵🎨
It’s now your turn to design our @pumafootball 26/27 Third Kit with PUMA AI CREATOR 👕
— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 9, 2024
Reaction from the football community
As previously alluded, this initiative hasn’t done much to improve City’s recent PR.
A quick scroll through the comments section of the competition announcement on X shows a palpable sense of frustration and exception to the whole concept.
Puma’s in-house design team typically handle kit creation for City, and while it may be admirable that the club wants to include fans in the creative process, the reliance on generative AI represents a real misreading of the room.
‘Incredible artists getting turned away for AI to create shitty designs. it’s such a man city thing,’ said one X user.
incredible artists getting turned away for AI to create shitty designs. it’s such a man city thing.
— CTRL JuKeY (@xxJUKEY) December 9, 2024
Another posted: ‘I support Man City. But I have to say, these are the worst football kits I have ever seen.. I don’t support AI generated art and this is a waste of an attempt at creating something genuine.’
The overwhelmingly negative reaction aligns with a growing number of studies showing that designers are concerned by their profession being devalued by AI. 64% of respondents in a 2023 Adobe study reported negative feelings towards AI and content scraping.
Perhaps City were hoping the marketing gimmick would spark comments sections full of AI designs and related hashtags to trend, but the reality is far bleaker for the club’s and Puma’s relations on social media.
Given the circumstances, it’s hard to sympathise. How did nobody on either side see this coming?
