With less than three weeks to go before their first group stage match and courtroom drama swirling in the background, Cameroon’s national football team has finally unveiled the jerseys they’ll wear at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
The Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot) unveiled the kits on Saturday, November 5. They’re made by One All Sports, a company that until recently had focused mainly on motorsports apparel.
The home kit is green, with a darker green pattern on the chest. The standup collar is red, while the sleeve cuffs have green, red and yellow stripes with a yellow star in the middle of the red stripe to mimic the Cameroonian flag. The Fecafoot logo appears on the right chest, while a lion crest (the national team’s nickname is the “Indomitable Lions”) sits on the left chest. One All Sports’ logo sits in between.
The dark green chest pattern and flag sleeve cuffs carry forward to both the white away kit and the red third kit, as do the crests on the chest. The away kit features a white standup collar, while the third kit collar is green.
Each shirt has a matching pair of shorts with the same base colour and a dark green pattern down each side.
A red goalkeeper kit was also unveiled on Saturday. It features a tonal pattern of geometric shapes down the front and solid red raglan sleeves.
Cameroon’s kits have been the subject of a legal battle leading up to the World Cup. Fecafoot previously had a contract with French manufacturer Le Coq Sportif for their national team kits, which they wore as recently as the men’s Africa Cup of Nations in early 2022 and the women’s Africa Cup of Nations over the summer. But the federation unilaterally ended that contract early in July 2022 and then signed a contract with One All Sports in August.
Le Coq Sportif took Fecafoot to court to force them to honour the original terms of their contract, which ran through December 31, 2023, and included the World Cup. On Thursday, November 3, a judge ruled in favor of Le Coq Sportif, saying the contract was still valid. Fecafoot has indicated that it will appeal the decision.
In the meantime, however, Le Coq Sportif has stood down and will not continue the legal dispute during the World Cup. “We will not put the players and staff of the Indomitable Lions in an uncomfortable situation before and during this event. They must be able to give the best of themselves to thrill the Cameroonian people,” a statement from the company reads, according to BeIn Sports.
But the statement also says Le Coq Sportif will continue the fight once the tournament concludes.
Cameroon is in Group G in Qatar, along with Serbia, Switzerland and Brazil. They begin their World Cup campaign against Switzerland on Thursday, November 24, at the Al Wakrah Sports Complex in Al Wakrah.