Arsenal have swapped their traditional red shirts for a totally white strip in their opening game of this year's FA Cup campaign.
The Gunners travel to Oxford United for a third round tie on Monday evening, using the occasion to publicise the club's No More Red campaign. The initiative aims to help tackle knife crime, with more than 11,500 such offences being committed in London last year.
That is up on the same period in 2021, with Arsenal moving to attempt to combat the increasing problem with knife crime in the capital. The No More Red campaign is a joint venture with kit manufacturers Adidas.
It sees the Gunners swap their red shirts, white shorts and red socks for an all-white number, with the club badge and sponsors blanked out. The kit will not be made commercially available to buy, but a limited number will be given to those who volunteer for the campaign.
Alongside Adidas, Arsenal have also partnered with The Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, St Giles Trust and The Ben Kinsella Trust, which is named after the brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella. Ben was stabbed to death in north London in 2008.
The Gunners will make their most public show of support for the campaign on Monday evening at the Kassam Stadium. They will wear both an all-white kit for the game and for their warm-up against the League One side.
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Last year, Arsenal also showed their support for the campaign in the third round defeat to Nottingham Forest And Freddie Hudson, head of Arsenal in the Community, believes it is an important initiative to support.
“Last year we were proud to launch No More Red with adidas. It provided a unique opportunity to highlight almost four decades of our local community work that has helped to keep thousands of young people safe," Hudson said.
“Throughout 2022, we worked in our local area with adidas, our local authority and our charity partners to build on our support for young people by providing more high quality safe spaces to play sport, access to trusted role models and to shine a light on the positive work being done across our community.
“Young people face multiple challenges as they grow up in today’s world and we don’t have all the answers, but we are confident our work makes a significant contribution to the lives of our participants.
“Our hard work must continue and we’re proud to be building on the achievements of the first year of No More Red by adding more social action projects and a volunteer programme that broadens the reach of this powerful initiative.”
Arsenal will hope to have more luck in the No More Red kit than they did last year. Against then-Championship side Forest, the Gunners suffered a shock third round defeat thanks to Lewis Grabban's late winner.
