page_title: History of the India national football team
section_title: Kit history
hierarchical_section_title: History of the India national football team / Kit history
caption_attribution_description: English: India national football team during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualification. 1 Sandip Nandy, 17 Irungbam Surkumar Singh, 42 Deepak Kumar Mondal, 23 Sanjeev Kumar Maria, 41 Pradeep Naduparambil Pappachan, 7 Mehtab Hussain, 4 Mehrajuddin Wadoo, 44 Micky Fernandes, 16 James Lukram Singh, 10 Syed Rahim Nabi, 15 Baichung Bhutia
context_page_description: The history of the India national football team dates back to the 1920s. They have never played in the World Cup although they qualified in 1950. They have had no entries in the tournament from 1950 onwards. India have never won the final of the Asian Championship but managed their best ever finish by making it to the final in the 1964 AFC Asian Cup. They have only made three appearances since then.
context_section_description: The India national team plays in blue, the colour of the Ashoka Chakra on the Indian flag. The other colours on the flag, saffron, white, and India green, were deemed too controversial to be used as the main colour, as jerseys with saffron and green are often used by neighbouring countries. Blue as the national colour for India was soon made more prominent due to the success of the India cricket team and field hockey teams. The football team, however, has used some sort of shade of blue for decades.
  The national team kits and uniforms have evolved as the game has over the years and in recent times new technologies have been utilised to improve the kits and uniforms. At the turn of the 21st century, India wore a sky blue shirt with black pants and sky blue socks as their kit. In 2002, the All India Football Federation signed a deal with German manufacturer Adidas to produce the India kit. The first kit made by Adidas was all-white. After four years with Adidas, the AIFF signed an agreement with American company Nike on 27 February 2006. The deal was for seven years. Nike's first kits for India were in darker blue while the away kit was changed from white to orange. 
  For the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, in which India were participating, Nike designed India's kit using the same template it used for other national teams such as Brazil. In January 2013. it was announced that the AIFF's deal with Nike was extended for an extra five years. Nike made a simplistic kit in 2006 with a light blue shirt with a little shade of white on the shirt and white short. The 2009-10 Nike kit was a throwback to the 2006-07 kit but the blue colour got a bit darker and they experimented with horizontal stripes for the first time in 2013. In September 2017, prior to the India U17 side's participation in the FIFA U-17 World Cup, Nike unveiled an all sky blue kit for the India senior and youth teams. Inspired by the history and heritage of the Blue Tigers, India's latest Nike national team kit features a new shade of blue and an orange stripe that runs the length of the jersey and shorts. That stripe expands when a player is in motion to maximize ventilation, complementing Nike's proprietary Dri-FIT technology that helps draw sweat away from the body. These features allow players to perform at their best by remaining cool, dry and more comfortable.
  A year later, on 17 December 2018, it was announced that Indian manufacturer Six5Six would replace Nike as India's kit maker. In becoming India's new kit makers, Six5Six also became the first manufacturer to pay for the rights to produce India kits, after both Nike and Adidas didn't pay. Six5Six unveiled their first jersey for the team before the  2019 AFC Asian Cup, with the home colour had a similar sky blue shade and the away colour was changed to white from orange but both the jerseys had unique design embellished on the sleeves representing tiger stripes to pay homage to the Indian football fans, who affectionately calls the team "Blue Tigers", where as the goalkeeper's jersey replaced the light green to orange colour with the same sleeves design.
caption: India in 2007, wearing their traditional blue jersey.
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