In the annals of weird football kits, this might be the oddest.
Yesterday, the Spanish football team Club Deportivo Palencia Balompié unveiled their new human-body-themed team jerseys, emblazoned with a realistic front and back representation of skinless male musculature (the groin area discreetly fades to black).
With a design reminiscent of Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibit, a page from the Faux Real novelty t-shirt catalogue, or a zombie hoard from The Walking Dead, the team was clearly gunning for notoriety with ”the most shocking kit in the history of football,” as La Gazetta dello Sport reports.
The bracingly kitschy jerseys (made by Kappa Iberia) may not be high fashion, but they seem to have worked as a publicity stunt for the relatively obscure five-year-old team, playing in one of the lower leagues in the Spanish football league system. C.D. Palencia’s bodacious jerseys are designated as their third kit, to be worn as special occasion uniforms when they’re not in their usual purple and black home colors.
Fan versions of the so-called kamiseta kappa musculo are already available on the team’s website for €50, so visitors to the area should prepare to be horrified by regular guys (and gals) on the street who look like they’ve been skinned alive.