Chelsea begin their Premier League campaign against Liverpool with a distinctly retro-looking home shirt after failing to agree a sponsorship deal on time.
The club’s previous £40m-per-season deal with mobile network Three expired at the end of last season and securing a replacement has proven difficult.
Chelsea pulled out of a lucrative deal with online casino firm Stake.com following a backlash from supporters and gambling campaigners.
Betting sponsors on the front of shirts will be forbidden from the start of the 2026-27 season, although some clubs including Aston Villa, who are partnered with BK8, have agreed new deals with firms in that sector.
The Blues were blocked from pursuing an agreement with American streaming service Paramount+ by the Premier League over concerns it would upset their broadcaster partners.
NBC Sports provide the Premier League’s matchday coverage in the US.
According to The Daily Mail, Chelsea have agreed a deal with US tech firm Infinite Athlete that is worth as much annually as their prior agreement with Three.
Infinite Athlete’s products include an artificial intelligence injury detector which aims to detect and reduce the risk of injury to athletes, a data sharing dashboard and technology that delivers an AI-driven match viewing experience for supporters.
The club had hoped to display the Infinite Athlete logo on their shirts for their game against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, but are yet to have the deal approved by the Premier League.
Fans have been unable to buy Chelsea’s logo-less new shirt this summer during the ongoing search for a sponsor.
The Blues are not the only Premier League side to start the new season without a logo on their shirts as Nottingham Forest are also in the same position.
Forest were similarly unsponsored this time last year before partnering with the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees, the UN refugee agency, in the second half of the season.
Comment: Chelsea’s new 90s kit looks like just another training shirt
By Daniel Storey, i‘s chief football writer
Firstly, we must say this: the new Chelsea shirt is not nice. There will be those who disagree, some of them angrily, but remember this: people like Toploader too.
The pattern and the stitching makes it look like a child’s wetsuit. The iridescent crest that “highlights the prestige and glamour of the famous King’s Road in the ’90s” – to read the bumph – looks a bit cheap. The kit that is being nodded to from across the years, Chelsea’s 1997-98 home shirt, is barely identifiable bar the sleeve detail.
Initially, this new Chelsea shirt will be available sponsor-free, presumably to push two windows of sales but also because Chelsea haven’t announced their new sponsor yet.
We spent so long demanding to buy replica shirts without the garish logo on the front that we never stopped to consider what they might look like. On jazzy, busy, detailed designs, it works wonderfully. On a plain design, it looks like just another training shirt that clubs sell to supporters.
Read the full article by Daniel here
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