MLS Looks to Give the Boot to Childhood Cancer with Special Pre-Match Jerseys

Major League Soccer and its clubs are looking to give childhood cancer the boot with a league-wide initiative through the month of September that features special pre-match jerseys.

The eighth annual Kick Childhood Cancer campaign benefits and promotes the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Foundation, which is “the world’s largest organization devoted exclusively to childhood and adolescent cancer research, uniting more than 10,000 experts in childhood cancer at more than 200 leading children’s hospitals around the world,” according to MLSSoccer.com.

The pre-match jerseys, made by adidas, feature an all-over design of cartoon letters and symbols in gold, which comes from the international awareness symbol for childhood cancer, the gold ribbon. The design appears on a white base, with a black crew neck collar and sleeve cuffs. The adidas logo, club crests and sponsor logos are all black.

Take a look at all 28 versions of the jersey in the gallery below:

MLS will donate all royalties from the sale of these pre-match jerseys through official retail partners until Dec. 31 to COG.

The collection includes expansion franchise Charlotte FC, which was originally supposed to begin play in 2021. However, their debut was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As with other special MLS pre-match jerseys — like the Americana and Pride versions — clubs that have separate sponsorship deals for training apparel have had those sponsors’ logos included on these jerseys.

Other features of the month-long campaign include:

Special edition match balls
Gold corner flags
Gold goal nets
Gold captain’s armbands
Gold ribbon patches on game jerseys
Wristbands with gold ribbons for referees

Major League Baseball players also wore gold ribbon patches on their uniforms and gold wristbands on Wednesday, Sept. 1, to raise awareness for the fight against childhood cancer.

Photos courtesy MLSStore.com and @MLS / Twitter