Barcelona Refuses to Ditch Their Bold 2024-25 Third Kit – Here's Why
Barcelona kicked off their La Liga championship campaign with an emphatic 3–0 victory against Mallorca, yet numerous fans were puzzled by the Catalans' choice to sport their vibrant lime-green alternate jersey from the previous season during their 2025–26 opener.
The Catalan club will continue wearing this same uniform in their upcoming fixture against Levante, though this decision to persist with last season's kit isn't the club's choice—rather, La Liga holds ultimate authority over which uniforms each team uses for every league encounter.
Barcelona have already revealed their trio of new uniforms for the 2025–26 campaign. The iconic Blaugrana home strip and an away design honoring basketball legend Kobe Bryant were presented prior to the season's commencement.
A striking orange alternate kit featuring retro styling, drawing inspiration from the 2008–09 uniform Barcelona wore during their historic "sextuple" achievement, has now been revealed, but La Liga hasn't granted permission for its use against Levante.
Why Barcelona Continue to Play With Their 2024–25 Third Kit?
SPORT indicates that Barcelona will persist with their alternate kit from the previous campaign because La Liga rejected all of their 2025–26 uniforms for the matches against Mallorca and Levante.
In their season opener versus Mallorca, the traditional Blaugrana shirt was ruled out—as typically happens whenever Barcelona faces a team sporting a red home uniform—due to conflicts with Mallorca's traditional home colors. Barça's away strip was also rejected because the black shorts and socks matched Mallorca's home kit exactly. Barça's third kit hadn't been revealed at that time, but it was also denied approval for similar reasons as the Blaugrana uniform.
Similar to Barcelona, Levante's conventional home kit also features Blaugrana colors, preventing Barcelona from unveiling their home strip in the upcoming encounter. Unless there's a last-minute adjustment, SPORT reports that their remaining 2025–26 kits have again been rejected by La Liga, citing conflicts with Levante's home uniform.
Spanish top-division clubs must submit their potential match-day uniforms to a platform called 'Kit Selector'. After submission, La Liga either grants or refuses permission for their use in each particular match. Throughout the season's opening two fixtures, none of Barcelona's new kits have received approval.
A primary consideration in La Liga's evaluation process is how the uniforms will appear to television viewers. Despite the range of colors in Barcelona's new designs, La Liga maintains there could be visual confusion when combined with their opponents' home kits.
There are suggestions that Barcelona might reference the 2014–15 season when they visited Levante wearing a bright orange kit, remarkably similar to their new third uniform. Nevertheless, they'll most likely take the field on Aug. 23 in lime-green once more.
Barcelona travel to face Rayo Vallecano the subsequent week, a team that typically wears all-white, potentially allowing them to debut their 2025–26 Blaugrana kit in their third seasonal match.