What would you do for a new shirt? What if it belonged to your favourite football team?
In a video uploaded to Twitter, Etihad Airways — the official sponsor of English Premier League champions Manchester City F.C. — tested the courage of six Man City megafans by challenging them to ‘fly’ — i.e. bungee jump — from a pair of towering cranes, which were parked outside of Etihad Stadium in the UK. The Abu Dhabi airline wanted to give select fans a chance to win the team’s newly minted home shirts from Puma.
“There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for city,” one fan stated, while another revealed that she had named her son after Gabriel Jesus, the club’s 22-year-old Brazilian forward.
All six fans were prepared to get on the cranes and begin their nerve-wracking ascent into the sky, but only four of them were able to survive the full trip.
"I can't!!!"
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” one fan chanted, giving up partway up as her crane was being lifted upward. Another panicked as she spotted the view from above, shouting: “Oh my god, I looked down, I looked down, I can’t, I can’t – I need to sit down!”
The remaining survivors, however, all took on the challenge and bungee jumped from the cranes, winning themselves City’s new home shirt.
The football club’s brand new 2019/20 kits include their signature blue home shirts and the introduction of black and yellow away shirts.
The kits also mark the beginning of City’s collaboration with German sports brand Puma, after their Nike deal ended on July 1.
“When we visited Manchester the black and yellow stripes were something we saw a lot around the city which is why we decided to go with that as part of the design,” said Puma’s Product Line Manager, Josele Angulo. The black and yellow was also a nod to hazard motifs.
As for the home kit, the main difference from last season is the addition of purple.
“With the home kit we were trying to find a difference from the previous combination of the City blue, dark blue and white … We looked into the colours that had been used in the past and thought purple would be a good change, as well as being a reference to colours used in past kits,” said Angulo. The club’s third kit in 2018 was a combination of purple and orange.
Puma had previously been the official sports partner of Arsenal, who are sponsored by UAE airline Emirates, but the Gunners made a switch to Adidas for their upcoming season.
