Colours are associated with emotion. Red is the colour of anger. It provokes emotion and instantly grabs someone’s attention. Red is also the colour of danger. It is a warning sign or a flashing siren. In sports, it could signal the impending danger for the opposing athlete.
A groundbreaking study in 2005 looked at the Athens Olympic Games regarding combat sports like boxing and wrestling where athletes were issued red or blue clothing. In an arena made up of the world’s best athletes, the discrepancy in skill between opponents is small. If colour had no effect in combat sports, the difference in victories between teams donning red or blue should be relatively equal. However, the study found that athletes wearing red were significantly more likely to win compared to athletes wearing blue.
In contrast to combat sports, the lucky colour in speed skating was rumored to be blue during the 2018 Winter Olympics. According to Dutch speed skater Dai Dai N’tab, “[i]t’s been proven that blue is faster than other colours.” This perceived blue superiority could also explain why Norway, one of the dominant countries in speed skating, decided to change their uniform colour that year from the traditional red to blue.
“They said [blue] skates a little faster than red, so I like to believe that,” said Norweigan speed skater Hege Bokko.
So, what about football?
A study done in 2008 at the University of Durham looked at data from 1947 to 2003 based on the top three English football leagues. Teams were categorized into colour groups based on their home kits. The results of the data analysis showed strong evidence supporting red superiority within the leagues. According to the study, “[r]ed teams consistently showed the highest level of performance, while yellow-orange teams achieved the least success.” In fact, teams wearing predominantly red kits made up about 60% of the champions despite only making up around 20% of the entire sample.
This isn’t to say that wearing red magically increases a team’s chances of winning. If the team is not good, wearing red won’t help. Colour plays a small factor in football when compared to far more important attributes such as skill and fitness. However, in the case where all variables are relatively equal, can colour tip the balance? Research has shown that wearing red can raise one’s blood pressure and increase heart rate, both of which can cause energy levels to spike. In football, energy level can influence a game substantially.
With this information, a clear trend emerges. Red is the colour of winners. From Bayern Munich to Manchester United, AC Milan to Liverpool, some of the most elite teams in football have worn the dominant red kit.
So does wearing red give teams an advantage in football? Could the colour of a kit make the difference in a Champions League final? From these studies, it seems the answer is yes. There is almost a certain mystical quality about the colour red that makes this answer plausible, or even likely.
Reality, however, is more complicated. A new study done in 2022 by researchers at the University of San Diego and the German Sport University Cologne reanalyzed the study done in 2008 to include data from English football up to 2018. The study also looked to expand its sample size and incorporating data from other European football leagues including Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands.
The results in this study were inconsistent with the one done in 2008 as researchers failed to “detect uniform colour effects at home play in professional football.” Using a larger sample size, the data suggests that colour plays no role in deciding a football match. Furthermore, most studies finding links between colour and sporting performance have been under scrutiny for flawed research methods and the use of small sample sizes. When looking at most of the data, it is likely that uniform colours have no sway in helping sports performance within football.
Even in speed skating, there is very little empirical evidence to support Olympian claims towards blue superiority. Perhaps it should also be worth noting that the Norwegian speed skating uniform sponsor, AS Bolaks, has a blue logo that compliments the blue uniform well.
So has the myth of red superiority in football been completely dispelled? In the future, there might be some other groundbreaking study that provides evidence for this, but according to the data currently available, wearing red won’t help you win.
Despite this, I would like to offer a more encouraging conclusion to what effect colour has on sports. There is something powerful about superstition. With how widespread the idea of wearing a certain colour can help you in a sport, there can be psychological benefits. Simply put, although wearing blue in speed skating or wearing red in football doesn’t actually help you win, if you believe it does, you might just perform a bit better. In the world of competitive sport, that tiny belief can go a long way.
