If Celtic’s Kit Makers Release A Fourth Strip It Will Be Out Of Greed, Not Need.

It has been a long time – in my living memory, but a long time – since you could buy a football kit which was still valid the following year. Kit launches have become occasions on their own. And with a home kit comes an away kit too, of course.

Third kits, or European kits as they are laughably known, are a piss-take. There is no requirement for them beyond those exceptionally rare occasions when you play against a team where the first and second kits can’t be worn without some kind of clash. Creative thinking, and common sense, should make that nearly impossible, but of course it doesn’t.

Third kits you can just about – just about – make allowances for in regards to that handful of occasions. Fourth strips … that’s inexcusable. That’s about money, nothing else. A shameless, cynical grab for it. Celtic has never released a fourth kit.

That might be about to end. The rumour factory has churned out a story that Adidas is in the process of getting one ready for “launch.” They can launch it in the direction of the bin. There is no need for it, and in the absence of need you’re left with greed.

That’s what motivates the manufacture of a fourth kit, and at a time like this it’s an appallingly cynical move on the part of the manufacturers and Celtic should not be agreeing to it. It’s only because this is still largely speculation that I’m not being even more emphatic in my denunciation of the whole idea. I will be far angrier if we actually do it.

There are some in our support who will buy whatever Adidas and the club put out. I am not going to criticise them for that, but if ever an idea deserved to crash and burn, if ever a marketing concept deserved to achieve no traction, it’s this one.

If the two companies do this, then it deserves to fail and fail utterly.