As the new A-League season nears, new jerseys leaks and releases begin

The contest winner, a 28-year-old local fan, explained his thought process in designing the chosen look:

Last season, Heart turned heads with a one-off design that included each player’s Twitter handle where his name would ordinarily appear. That was a first in Australia and was both celebrated and derided in sports aesthetics circles. This design does not have a social media aspect to it, though it is certainly a much bolder look. Manager John Aloisi and Heart players chose the winning entry from a handful highlighted by the club.

Perth Glory announced in June that they would partner with Macron for training wear and kits for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons. Today the club unveiled those kits at an invite-only event, showing off the new strips and related team apparel.

Perth have altered its home look for the upcoming season, abandoning the more traditional alternating purple and white vertical stripes in favor of a mostly purple shirt with white pinstripes that stop at the base of the collar. Macron’s template, which has been used in other leagues by clubs like AZ Alkmaar, accounts for the somewhat strange collar on the home kit. The two-toned purple is certainly a departure from past kits but it would be hard to argue Macron have not improved the overall look for the Glory.

Wellington Phoenix have unveiled their 2013/14 home kits, manufactured again by adidas. Back in August, a kit leak made its way online via the A-League’s Twitter account, so today’s release confirms that leak as accurate, at least as far as the shirt itself is concerned. The photo used the previous template’s shorts and socks. In addition to a new template for the Phoenix, the club announced a new shirt sponsorship, featuring the logo of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei.

According to a club press release, Huawei is the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier and have signed on for a three-year contract. Though it is a huge company, Huawei is all but unknown in Australia and New Zealand, which was clearly a key aspect to the company’s investment in an A-League club.

After renaming Hindmarsh earlier this offseason, Adelaide United have added another major sponsorship to the fold. Today the club announced environmental services company Veolia as shirt sponsor for the 2013/14 season. The Reds also showed off the new sponsorship on their existing kits, which will carry over into the new season. Additionally, the club’s ‘10 years’ badge was added to both the shirt and shorts.

In 2012/13, Adelaide featured several variations on their shirt fronts, wearing the manufacturer’s wordmark, an Unleash Solar sponsorship and in the finals, the logo of Solarshop. In unveiling Veolia as a front of shirt sponsor for the upcoming year, the Reds are signing up for more consistent financial backing and an opportunity to put the club on solid ground.

Next up in the kit launches for A-League clubs is Brisbane Roar, who today released their 2013/14 home, change and third kits. The Roar join Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers with official uniform unveilings in the past week. Whether or not the A-League specifically borrowed the Kit Week idea from Major League Soccer, the spread out unveilings have created quite a lot of buzz for the league and for kits in general.

The Roar have stuck with their traditional orange home shirts, again using a standard Puma template. While this look has been used around the world for 2013/14 kits, the color combinations work really well with orange, navy and white.

Four days after Melbourne Victory released their controversial kits and five days after neighbors Western Sydney Wanderers unveiled their ever-so-slightly altered uniforms, Sydney FC have taken the stage next in the A-League’s great kit show. Like their rivals in Melbourne, the Sky Blues’ jerseys have drawn ire from local fans due to a detail that too closely resembles the Victory.

Sydney, who sell more kits than any other A-League club, have used a new adidas template which includes a mesh area below the collar, similar to that worn by AC Milan, among other users of adidas templates. Yet using navy blue in the shape of a ‘V’ instantly reminds Sydney fans of Melbourne Victory.

Melbourne Victory joined Western Sydney Wanderers in releasing a new set of kits yesterday, launching theirs via YouTube video. The A-League club has put forth an updated version of its classic navy blue and white home kit but has upset supporters with a new white and sky blue change kit.

Apart from releasing a new home kit that is so similar to last season’s, like Western Sydney, they’ve removed side panels, though the Victory have replaced theirs with a slightly different version instead of a complete elimination. There are also new, striped socks and navy socks accompanying the home shirt, which is a departure from the navy socks and white shorts last year.

Western Sydney Wanderers have released their 2013/14 A-League home kit today, via Twitter. The new version, again manufactured by Nike, features the same general design as the popular, inaugural 2012/13 edition worn during the club’s premiership winning season.

The biggest difference on the front of the new shirt is the change in template for last season. Whereas the original shirt had a rounded seam across the chest, the new version has seams just at the sleeves. The difference, while slight, is apparent upon closer inspection. Additionally, the Wanderers have dropped the black side panels that were difficult to see in some instances but quite obvious when viewed from behind. Those side panels combined with the rear name/number box to form what looked like a backpack on the home kit and a big, empty space on the change kit.

Kit season is always fun as clubs try to keep their new designs a secret until the official launch dates. Yet this week, Wellington Phoenix seem to have debuted both of their new home and change kits. The former was more of a mistake than the latter as the A-League’s official Twitter account posted this image from a photo shoot:

The tweet has since been deleted but, thanks to the magic of screen shots, we can remember what the design looked like before the official release. Of note is the lack of Sony’s sponsorship on the front of the shirt. Though there is nothing official yet, the Phoenix could be without a shirt sponsor in 2013/14.