Rugby teams get blues in Champions Cup color clash

A case of too many blue shirts may have caused some red faces among European rugby chiefs following an extraordinary kit clash during Cardiff’s Champions Cup match against Glasgow on Sunday.

Both teams lined up in blue strips, with visitors Glasgow’s marginally the lighter.

But they were similar enough to cause confusion to players, particularly when the sun was beating down at Cardiff’s Arms Park ground.

Cardiff’s Gareth Anscombe, his mood unlikely to have been improved by Glasgow’s 29-12 pool win, labeled the farcical situation a “disgrace” as he slammed tournament organizers European Professional Cup Rugby.

Under tournament rules, teams must submit two kit designs to EPCR before the start of the competition and a fortnight before each fixture officials tell them which strip they will be wearing.

Cardiff counterpart John Mulvihill added, “We complained before the game about the jerseys. The jerseys were exactly the same color.

“It would have been an absolute nightmare for the referee, an absolute nightmare for the assistant referees, and running into that sun in that first half the boys couldn’t differentiate who was their teammate and who wasn’t. It was ridiculous.”

This is not the first case of its kind, with the tendency of modern designers to add colors to once plain shirts also causing problems.