Defending La Liga champions FC Barcelona have had to dig deep into their wardrobes to start the 2025-26 season due to the league declaring their kits too similar to their opponents’.
Barça opened their 2025-26 campaign on Saturday, August 16, with a 3-0 away victory over RCD Mallorca. In that match, they wore their lime green third kit from 2024-25 as La Liga had deemed all three of their 2025-26 kits too similar to Mallorca’s home jersey. This includes their gold away kit and their orange third kit, which was just officially released on Tuesday, August 19, and is inspired by Nike’s Total 90 jersey template from the early 2000s.
Barcelona face a similar situation in their next match on Saturday, August 23, when they visit newly promoted Levante UD, whose home kit — like Barcelona’s — consists of dark red and blue vertical stripes.
According to Spanish media outlet SPORT, La Liga has a unique process for determining what kits team will wear for any given match. Both teams upload their options to the league’s “Kit Selector” application, and the La Liga match director makes the final decision, with the home team taking precedence. “Once this filter has been passed and if there is any irregularity on match day before taking the field, it is the main referee … who has the power to order a substitution and ensure that the approved combinations are respected,” the publication reports (translated to English by Microsoft Bing).
With Levante, SPORT reports La Liga as saying, their home kit shares “a chromatic combination that clashes with [Barcelona’s] three new kits.”
Barcelona are starting their 2025-26 La Liga season with three straight away matches, with a visit to Rayo Vallecano after the Levante match. Barça wore their home kits in their visit to the Vallecas Stadium last season, so their new home jerseys are likely to debut then.
The team’s schedule was drawn up in hopes Barcelona would be able to return to their home stadium, the Camp Nou, after two full seasons of renovations, but permitting delays mean that may not happen in time for their first scheduled home game against Valencia CF on Sunday, September 14. If they can’t play at the Camp Nou, the game will likely take place at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, where Barça played home games the past two seasons.
