Blue is the ‘New Black’ in the Europa League

During the 2nd leg of the Round of 32 (i.e. 23 and 25-02-2010) in the Europa League, all match officials sported the new Adidas World Cup 2010 kits. Compared with the previous week, this presumably meant that all Europa League referees have now received their new Adidas kits.

Of the 16 matches, 11 matches saw officials wear cyan-blue, 3 poppy-red, and 2 neon-yellow.
Note: Match officials wore blue in 69% of this week’s Europa League matches.


In the 1st leg of the Round of 32 (i.e. 16 and 18-02-2010) in the Europa League, the match officials’ Adidas kits appeared to be in a transitional phase between the current Euro 2008 kits and the new World Cup 2010 kits.

Of the 16 matches, 5 matches saw the officials wear the Euro 2008 kits (4 were aqua-blue, 1 was infra-red); and in the other 11 matches the officials wore the new World Cup 2010 kits (8 were cyan-blue, 2 neon-yellow, 1 poppy-red). Which presumably meant that some of the referees had yet to receive their new Adidas kits.
Note: Match officials wore blue in 75% of last week’s Europa League matches.



HKRef reckons UEFA "prefers" that Europa League match officials wear blue, providing there is a choice over black, red or yellow. In fact, so far no Europa League match official has worn black (i.e. punjab-black).

Therefore, Blue is the ‘new Black’ … at least in the Europa League!