"The jersey belongs to everyone, and anyone can wear it whenever they want." That's the line from Pablo González, a 70-year-old De La Espriella supporter in Bogotá. His opponents would say that's exactly the problem.
With weeks to go before Colombia kicks off their World Cup campaign, la amarilla — the bright yellow national team shirt — has been transformed from a symbol of collective pride into campaign attire for Abelardo De La Espriella, a right-wing presidential candidate endorsed by Donald Trump. His supporters wore the jerseys to closing rallies, to voting booths, and kept wearing them after election day. A legal workaround, a political statement, and a cultural provocation all at once.
It worked. De La Espriella finished first in the first round of voting, forcing a runoff against left-wing senator Iván Cepeda later this month.
A symbol under siege
Colombia's football federation tried to thread the needle — denouncing the politicisation of the shirt while acknowledging they have no power to stop it. "We deeply regret that the Colombian national team jersey is being misinterpreted or is the subject of controversies unrelated to sporting glory," the federation said. Diplomatic, toothless, and probably the only thing they could say.
Cepeda called it theft. Bogotá barista Adriana Salazar, 27, called it intimidation. "It's disgusting," she said, describing the sight of jerseys at polling stations as a form of bullying toward those who disagree. She's not wrong that the optics carry weight — wearing a national symbol to a polling station, where campaign clothing is banned, is a deliberate provocation dressed up as patriotism.
The left is now debating whether to reclaim the shirt themselves. Which tells you everything about where this has ended up: a national football jersey as contested terrain.
The World Cup complicates everything
Colombia open their World Cup group stage on June 17 against Uzbekistan, playing their matches in Mexico and Miami. Every four years, presidential elections and the tournament collide on the Colombian calendar — politicians have always tried to surf the football wave. But nobody had ever turned the shirt itself into a uniform before De La Espriella did it.
Journalist Daniel Alarcón put it precisely: "Once a national symbol like that gets associated with one political party or another, I do think something is lost." The apolitical release of a last-minute goal, the moment where the whole country breathes the same air — that's what's at stake here. Whether Colombia's players can manufacture those moments on the pitch in the coming weeks, the shirt they wear will carry political baggage it never had before.
The Colombian Football Federation has no power to unpoliticise it. And with a presidential runoff and a World Cup both landing in the same month, nobody is about to put this back in the box.
