Manchester City's new home kit for 2025/26 season 'leaked' as fans slam 'horrible' design

Manchester City’s new home kit for the 2025/26 season has been ‘leaked’ online ahead of its planned release in May, revealing the jersey that Pep Guardiola’s side will play in next year as they work to regain the title of Premier League champions from Liverpool.

Footy Headlines claims to have acquired a photograph of City’s new shirt from a store ahead of a planned official launch in May – but the new design from Puma, which features an element that has only ever been seen on change shirts in the past, has drawn negative initial reviews on social media.

Manchester City’s new kit for the 2025/26 season ‘leaked’

The photograph of the new home kit, which can be seen in the social media post above, reveals that City’s traditional sky blue jersey while have a white sash running diagonally across the front for the first time. A sash has only ever appeared on the club’s away and third kits in the past, with a black and red sash across a white shirt being the design of both the club’s 2002/03 away jersey and its third kits between 2009 and 2011.

A sash running in the opposite direction is also believed to be a feature of the club’s limited edition kits for this summer’s Club World Cup, which have also been revealed in apparent leaks.

Instead of a simple straight line, the new home kit’s sash is broken up in a more fluid pattern, and appears to be the only detailing on an otherwise plain blue kit apart from some white on the back of the collar. Previous leaks of the club’s away kit for next season, which is expected to be orange, also suggest that it will feature a sash, this time black and yellow and running left to right.

Negative response greets kit reveal

An exact launch date for the new jersey (and the special Club World Cup kits) is not yet known, but Footy Headlines claims that it is expected to take place in May before the end of the current season.

Based on early responses to the new design, however, it may not be a best-seller. Responses to the new look on social media have been overwhelmingly negative, with the more printable verdicts describing it as “horrible” or simply saying “burn it”. There were some kinder words for the new shirt, although “not too bad” was about as generous as the reception has been from fans thus far.

Old home kits have occasionally toyed with the use of thin pinstripe lines or other fainter patterns across the chest – such kits were a regular feature of City’s look in the late Eighties and early Nineties - but this is the first time that a home kit hasn’t fundamentally been entirely blue, and perhaps the break from tradition isn’t to every fans’ taste.

However the players dress next season, of course, the priority will be restoring the club’s dominance at the top of the Premier League after failing to win the title for the first time in five years this season.