In celebration of the social impact collective’s fourth anniversary, Common Goal have unveiled its first ever football shirt in collaboration with SoccerBible. A limited edition release, all money received by Common Goal from the sales will be invested in projects using football to drive gender equality, fight racism, promote LGBTQ+ inclusion, and create peaceful and inclusive communities.
Common Goal was launched in 2017 when a single player, Juan Mata of Manchester United and Spain, committed to pledge one percent of his salary to a collective fund that invests in high-impact community organisations that use football to empower young people. The collective has since grown to 200 players and managers, and now, four years later, the social impact collective have launched their first-ever shirt. A team of Common Goal members, both female and male, have given their design input and modelled the shirts for the launch ahead of the 2021/22 season, in collaboration with SoccerBible and Avery Dennison.
Paulo Dybala, Serge Gnabry, Timo Werner, Dani Olmo, Juan Mata, Magda Eriksson, Pernille Harder, Lotte Wubben-Moy, and Jessica Silva, participated in the launch of two limited edition shirts with the aim of further accelerating Common Goal’s mission of uniting the global football community to tackle the greatest social challenges of our time.
“This jersey represents something very important for me because it epitomises giving back and solidarity that the football world should always have with people and fans,” said Paulo Dybala. “The message of this jersey is a reminder about who and what we represent. As players we have the voices to call for a better world which the Common Goal movement is trying to create.”
Based on a shared ambition to illuminate football’s potential to create a better world, Common Goal teamed up with us and Avery Dennison, a global materials science company specialising in design and manufacture. The shirt marks our second collaboration with Common Goal, and this partnership looks to drive social change and once again harness the emotional connection we have with contemporary football jerseys.
“We wanted to have a good and a 100% meaningful way of creating a shirt — not only by the looks of it, but also by the materials it's been made with,” explained Juan Mata. “It has been made sustainably and represents the values of Common Goal. It represents inclusion, it represents, of course, football, it represents equality, it represents all the values that Common Goal has. Ideally, as soon as you see it, you can understand why it is our shirt because it gives you an immediate feeling of Common Goal.”
The limited-edition shirts were custom-designed by Avery Dennison, with input from a diverse group of Common Goal members, and feature two colourways – magenta and blue. The expressive, iridescent print and crests reflect different colours depending on the view; symbolising the myriad of perspectives in which the game can be seen to create positive social change.
On the front, the shirts feature a unique three-part set of woven chest badges with a lenticular print providing a colour shimmer effect, with each crest representative of the movement’s mission: from maximising football’s contribution to people and the planet, fostering solidarity within the global football community, and changing the football’s industry’s DNA.
The Common Goal movement’s motto ‘Football is a team game, and so is social change’ runs on the inside back neck label, accompanied by a heat-applied digital QR code made possible to scan with anyone who owns a smartphone with a camera.
When scanned, the digitally connected garment connects you to a personalised video by Common Goal co-founder and Premier League player Juan Mata. The heat transfer on the back represents the 1% salary pledge made by Common Goal members which is then allocated to high-impact organisations that harness the power of football to advance the United Nations Global Goals.
Both variations of the shirt are made from 100% recycled polyester, a more sustainable material reducing carbon emissions by more than 30% compared to virgin polyester, to help lessen the shirts’ environmental impact.
Pick up the Common Goal x SoccerBible Jersey at prodirectsoccer.com
