Shirt swapping: new to NFL, but long part of soccer's rich tradition

More and more NFL players are swapping jerseys, but soccer stars have been doing it for decades. Scott Murray charts the history of shirt-swapping in soccer

Jerry Seinfeld had it about right. “Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify,” began his monologue at the start of The Label Maker. “Because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city, you’re actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it. You know what I mean, you are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt, they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!”

Proof that Jerry was the best part of two decades ahead of the curve has come in the NFL, where players have taken to swapping and ostentatiously autographing their shirts after games, much to the loud chagrin and intense displeasure of the old-school fan, for whom garments are sacred and such acts are verboten.

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