Ederson has designed the first AI-Generated football kit, which will be worn in a future Manchester City game. Fans will also be given the chance to design the 26/27 third kit. (Image: Manchester City)
Manchester City are boldly entering the world of AI - and they are not doing it quietly or cautiously.
In a first for football, City will give fans the chance to design the club's third kit for the 2026/27 season using a bespoke Generative AI design tool. Fans will be able to submit designs using AI prompts, rank other designs and one will be chosen as a future first team kit before going on sale to millions.
It's an opportunity that turns those doodles and drawings you did as children into a genuine reality, and the club hope they will receive hundreds of thousands of submissions.
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Working with Puma, City have today launched a competition for fans to design the future kit, giving 'the power to supporters' and handing over the creative baton to fans around the world.
To illustrate the process, City let goalkeepers Ederson and Stefan Ortega and defender Rico Lewis test-drive the AI Platform to design a 'keeper kit, that will be produced to be worn in a one-off game in January and sold in a limited run.
Ederson showcased the final product - a green shirt with a white design mimicking the netting of a goal - at an event at the Etihad last week, proudly likening it to a Brazil jersey. It is thought to be be the first kit to be designed and then worn by a football player.
How it will work
The Manchester Evening News were among the first to design a kit on the new platform, determined to test whether it is indeed as simple and intuitive as its creators claim.
With a simple prompt, a few boxes ticked to decide on a specific style and colours, and the design was generated within seconds - in this instance we went for an image of an owl in a stylised 'dream' pattern and we didn't feel the need to do much tweaking.
(Image: Manchester City)
Other early designs from the lucky few invited along included a skyline of Istanbul from a fan who took inspiration from a picture taken at the Champions League final.
Another asked for 'Maine Road, Manchester in the 1960s', with results ranging from City's old home to a more literal interpretation with a view of Portland Street. If you want an image, you have to be specific, but there are plenty of possibilities and developers are keen for supporters to spend time testing the tool for themselves, and are confident that no prior experience of design is needed.
Fans will get to rank other submissions they like to create a leaderboard of the most popular designs. 'It will be like Tinder, swiping left or right on designs', said one of the designers. The top ten will then be whittled down and put to a fan vote in January, with the winner going into production to be the chosen third kit.
Connecting with a global fanbase
"99 per cent of our fans are outside of Manchester," says City's Chief Marketing and Fan Experience officer, Nuria Tarre. "So we need to find ways to engage with them as well, delivering the best fan experience possible. This is giving the power back to fans.
"Our priority is giving the opportunity to fans to be creative. That was the real objective. Generative AI and the platform Puma have developed allows them to do it in a relatively simple way. The fans will decide, they'll rank the designs.
City hope they will receive hundreds of thousands of submissions across a wide range of design ideas. (Image: Manchester City)
"We're not afraid of taking some measured risks. We trust the process, trust the fans. They saw our collaborations in the past, our willingness, and we are open to doing that. It comes back to finding unique ways to engage with our fans globally, that's always front and central."
'Shirty McShirtface'
The platform and process is sure to appeal to millions of City fans around the world. However, the 'owl' design we created got us thinking, as it ended up more like a concept Sheffield Wednesday shirt than a City one, for example.
Surely there is an unspoken risk in handing power over to fans... What if rivals get hold of the tool?
Plenty of public votes have been hijacked in the past, and football fanbases aren't usually the forgiving type when presented with an opportunity.
But City sources insist they are confident the tool won't be abused, and the platform has been coded to produce designs with City 'traits' incorporated. Any designs that fall foul of strict FA and UEFA regulations will not be put to the final vote, for example, such as a strict ban on human faces or figures while there are limits on different kinds of messaging and legibility.
City also need to offer a 'light' change kit and a 'dark' one each season, so the away kit design for 26/27 will form part of that overall process. And for obvious reasons, the third kit cannot be sky blue - so the AI tool will lean away from producing designs with that base colour as part of its incorporated instructions.
"This is not the first time we’ve co-created with fans. Even when we changed our badge several years ago, we opened it up for fans to vote and we’ve done other competitions," Tarre told MEN Sport.
(Image: Manchester City)
"There’s always a possibility that some fans from other clubs want to have fun with it. Hopefully it’s a minority. We truly believe that the concept of fandom globally can extend across clubs so as long as they feel engaged to trial this, for us it’s a good level of engagement.
"I don’t think there’ll be that many opposition fans out there that will take the time to go, submit and give their details. We'll filter the ones that for regulatory purposes or other purposes might not be appropriate."
Ivan Dashkov, Head of Emerging Marketing Tech at PUMA, agrees.
"Fans might come in and start making kits for their own teams and obviously we’re focused on Man City but it's cool that people are coming in and playing with this tool in different ways. I hope the feeling they have is that 'I wish my club did this'. I’m also excited for people across the world to take part in this."
There is risk, too, that these kits are such strong revenue-drivers, and City are handing over the creative responsibility to a body of people outside their control.
Tarre explains: "There’s always a level of risk and we have a team of experts on both sides that know what will sell because they know the trends. If the fans like it, there’s a strong chance they will see themselves owning that kit otherwise why would you take the time to vote for it?
"I’m fairly confident. If this works really well, I think we’ll try to repeat it."
What next for AI?
So there is a one-off goalkeeper kit, and a future third kit, but what else can come of this bold step into the world of AI?
City have seen success in the release of limited-edition kits in recent years and have experimented in how certain shirts have been unveiled - such as online releases on Roblox to reach new, younger audiences.
For now, the focus is on using such a huge platform to learn what fans want from kits, what kind of designs they gravitate towards, and how that can inform future designs.
But there is also the 'the trend of customisation', as Tarre calls it - whether that be the popularity of limited kits, or personalisation on an individual basis to make that specific garment unique to them.
"This is a great way to build on that trend and that’s something very hard to deliver at scale so maybe technology will allow us to do that," she said.
"In the future, can we make limited edition kits? Let’s dream even bigger. Don’t you want to give fans the opportunity to ultimately have their own designed kit? Those are all hypotheses. We’re at the beginning of a journey, technology is opening doors and we’re just embracing it and hopefully it will open plenty of opportunities."
Fans can design their kits from December 9 to 20, before the top ten will be chosen and put to a public vote in the new year.