How World Cup football jerseys became political fashion in Latin America
Bogota, Colombia – Paulo Duarte has been obsessed with Brazilian football since he was a child. His father and uncle would take him to matches
Bogota, Colombia – Paulo Duarte has been obsessed with Brazilian football since he was a child. His father and uncle would take him to matches, and whenever Brazil's national team stepped onto the field, he would watch in wide-eyed wonder. As an adult, not much has changed. Duarte still collects football shirts and now runs an online store selling them. When he travels abroad, he carefully packs Brazil's yellow-and-green jersey in his suitcase. It's a way of carrying a piece of his country with him wherever he goes. "Every time that someone recognises the Brazilian football shirt, they come to me with a smile on their face, saying really good things about Brazil," Duarte, 39, says proudly.
He loves that it opens conversations about Brazil’s culture, from carnival and samba to football legends like Neymar and Pele. But back home in Brazil, he has watched the jersey get caught in a political tug-of-war. Brazil's far right has sought to claim the uniform, despite backlash from the left. "I feel sad about it because it's a matter of the politicians taking advantage of the shirt," he told Al Jazeera. "And both sides do these kinds of things." Brazil's presidential elections are approaching in October. In past races, the yellow jersey became associated with right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro, who led the country from 2019 to 2023.
Now, it's his eldest son Flavio Bolsonaro who is running for the far right. Just last month, he called the yellow shirt "Bolsonaro’s jersey" as his country's team competed in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. But Brazil is not alone in seeing the politicisation of the national kit. Across Latin America, politicians have increasingly sought to associate themselves with football shirts. In Colombia, the national jersey also became central to the campaign of right-wing President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, who used it to project patriotism and national unity. While Brazil and Colombia have both been eliminated from the World Cup, the battle over the kits continues.
" symbols are a constant source of tension and negotiation," said sociologist Bryan Clift, whose research examines sports, politics and pop culture. He sees football uniforms as a path for politicians to tap into a popular form of nationalism. "In those countries where a football shirt is popular because football occupies the premier sporting place in culture, that shirt can be extremely powerful in terms of imagining yourself as part of a broader collective," Clift said.
The BriefWire