Winger offends his own boot suppliers as he clutches at straws Damien Duff has claimed that the Republic of Ireland's controversial World Cup qualification play-off defeat to France was the result of a conspiracy between FIFA and Adidas. The Fulham man, who picks up £100,000 a year for wearing Adidas boots (for now at least), reckons [. Click to continue reading...

Meet Darrinho Darren Bent ensures his return to international football was a success by switching his allegiance from England to Brazil. He may well bite his nails: OTP reckons the good people of Umbro won't be overly impressed by his choice of clothing.

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We're guessing the buyer wasn't Pepe Reina The red beach ball which helped Sunderland to a shock victory against Liverpool has sold for £411.77 at auction. The inflatable, which deflected Darren Bent's shot past Pepe Reina, was auctioned to raise money for the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal. It is not known who won the auction, but the [. Click to continue reading...

Man Utd utility man contractually obliged to use the word 'cleat' In these crazy days of superstar footballers, viral marketing and global recession, boot deals have become a thing of the past for all but the game's most marketable elite. And when OTP thinks of marketable players John O'Shea is not one of the first that [. Click to continue reading...

Knee-length puffa monstrosity It looks like Michelin Man chic is in this season. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is beginning to feel the winter chill and has turned to this oversized puffa jacket to provide the warmth he craves.

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Come in number 11 Marseille youngster Hatem Ben Arfa had a nasty wardrobe malfunction at the weekend. Preparing to come on as a substitute, Ben Arfa stripped off his tracksuit to reveal that he was masquerading as team-mate Mamadou 'Pixie Lott' Niang. Cue much hilarity and a quick sprint for the kitman to reunite Ben Arfa with [. Click to continue reading...

GS is replaced by GS Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson has found an interesting way of cost-cutting at the Riverside Stadium. Recession-busting Boro will only appoint managers with the initials GS in future. Gordon Strachan can look forward to some oversized hand-me-downs from Gareth Southgate.

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Turn your club's misfiring strikers into hotshot Darren Bents The humorous string in the already hilarious tail of the beach ball incident is that the ball is an official product sold by the club shop. The fan in question obviously decided the temperature was getting a bit too chilly for it to be of any practical [. Click to continue reading...

Say no to "pinky" shirts Referees have only themselves to blame for the abuse they receive if they insist on wearing pink shirts, according to Gillingham manager Mark Stimon. The Gills boss reckons match officials' flamboyant wardrobes are undermining the Respect campaign. He said: "It's a crazy decision to put a referee in a pinky shirt. Click to continue reading...

Weird!

EMMANUEL ADEBAYOR'S feud with Robin van Persie began last season when he walked off with his strike partner's boots.

And the disgraced Adebayor will add insult to injury by dragging Van Persie into his battle with the FA.

The City striker was banned for three matches for raking Dutchman Van Persie's face with his studs during last week's explosive clash with Arsenal.

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Sports Direct apologises for '96 - Not Enough' printing Mike Ashley's sports shop chain has issued an apology after one of its employees allowed a Manchester United fan to have customised printing mocking the Hillsborough victims on the back of his replica shirt. Colm Jackson had the slogan 'YSB 96 NOT ENOUGH' printed at the Sports [. Click to continue reading...

Come in number 26 Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner has promised to refund fans who purchased replica shirts with his name on the back after deciding to change his squad number. The desperate Dane thinks swapping to his lucky number 52 might put an end to his wastefulness in front of goal. He said: "I'd like personally to [. Click to continue reading...

And why not? Everton's new away kit made it into OTP's Top five worst new Premier League kits list, so if we were the Toffees we would have been sneaking this into the club shop through the back-door. The club begged together and decided a group of well-built New Zealanders were the best way to launch [. Click to continue reading...

Kit mishap from Japan The notion that all footballers are thick might be a nasty stereotype, but incidents like this really don't help. Kashima Antlers' Brazilian striker Marquinhos is preparing for the kick-off with Shinzo Koroki when he notices that his team-mate's shorts have all sorts of nice accessories like ties, a logo and a squad [. Click to continue reading...

After the bad 'uns, now the good 'uns 1. Arsenal third They might have nicked the design from Roger Federer, but the Gunners' new third kit is a classy number. More than a nod to the Eighties (as well as to the tennis court) it is versatile as a replica but will also look great on the [...]

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Ironic Real advertising campaign Fans of Arjen Robben's shiny cranium, this new Adidas viral is a real treat for you. As you have probably noticed, the big Adidas-supplied teams are putting out these 12th man campaigns, supposedly alluding to the fans. The irony is that after Real Madrid's big-name attacking signings, Robben himself is not likely to [. Click to continue reading...

The nastiest new shirt designs 1. Bolton home Wanderers have been churning out some pretty awful home kits in recent years, and this is the worst of a bad bunch in OTP's opinion. As we already mentioned, it looks like Bolton will be fulfilling the Premier League's barcode quote in Newcastle's absence. Click to continue reading...

A tennis-themed Nike-a-like A pretty close match, we are sure you will agree. The only difference being that Roger Federer wore his for his biggest game of the season, whereas Arsenal will wear this shirt when they play away from home against a team whose home shirt is red and navy (ie not too often over [. Click to continue reading...

Oh! He's just managed to Photoshop it over the bar! We are a bit late to the party on this one having being dragged away from OTP Towers yesterday, but our friends at Twofootedtackle have dug up this gem. Nike's crack squad of marketeers and Photoshoppers decided this image of Manuel Almunia hanging in mid-air was [. Click to continue reading...

Brazilian defender's t-shirt not up to scratch Sure you love him, but do you belong to him? Kaka's smug look towards the slogan tells you he knows he is still football's number one Christian. And he wasn't going to delve into his t-shirt collection for a minor trophy like the Confederations Cup.

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Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before Click to enlarge. A careless web designer has once again left a football club red-faced after Liverpool's official website put Glen Johnson personalised shirts up for sale last night. Rumours that the Portsmouth and England right-back is on his way to Anfield in an £18 million move [. Click to continue reading...

Marketing for dummies, by AC Milan It is quite easy really: simply sell your star asset for a world record transfer fee so that your sponsors logo will be featured in every news outlet in the world. Secondly, sell him to a club which also happens to share the same sponsor. I BELONG TO BWIN, anyone? [. Click to continue reading...

Mainly promoting manly fun, Apple, courier services and books Ah, bless. I've been rooting for these two to get it together for years. This new Reebok viral is supposed to show Giggs and Henry psyching each other out ahead of tonight's Champions League Final. To be fair, they are just flirting with each. Click to continue reading...

Wayne Rooney couldn't go up much higher in our estimations after this season, with him announcing his hatred for Liverpool and insisting he wants to stay here forever.

Ahead of the European Cup final tomorrow, Rooney has been thinking about the final, imagining scoring the winning goal, and picturing himself lifting the trophy.

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Gary Megson's black-and-white army Newcastle fans have long faced jibes about being a bunch of walking barcodes because of their famous black and white stripes, but Bolton are ready to step in to fill the void should the Magpies be relegated on Sunday. The detailing on their new home strip (spotted on Twofootedtackle) is more barcode-ish [. Click to continue reading...

Cristiano Ronaldo has apologised for his tantrum last weekend. Ronaldo said sorry to Manchester United assistant kitman Alec Wyllie after he snatched a tracksuit top out of his hand and then threw it...
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Kit cock-up Wolverhampton Wanderers are already enjoying the trappings of life in the Premier League as they launched their new kit for their return to the top-flight. New sponsors Sportingbet.com came along to welcome Wolves back to the big time. Or not. The company's chief executive, Andrew McIver, managed to refer to Wolves as Spurs three [. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool boss gets rubbish Christmas presents If you thought you were the only person in the world with those novelty socks your auntie got you at Christmas, think again. Rafa Benitez is just like you, except he wears his in front of a TV audience of millions! OTP reader Russ tipped us about this and reckons they [. Click to continue reading...

As requested, following our worst England kits here are the best 1. England third shirt, 1970 England#8217;s World Cup defence might have been ill-fated, but at least they crashed out in style. All three shirts available to the squad were amazing, but we have plumped for the light blue third kit. Did the Aertex material keep England [. Click to continue reading...

The new England kit has the OTP seal of approval. Now let#8217;s remember when the kit designers didn#8217;t get it so right! 1. England third shirt, 1992 Umbro seemingly replaced the Three Lions by breeding a sunflower with an iguana and letting the resulting offspring crawl over this third shirt. 2. Click to continue reading...

And nobody is threatening to take us to court this time! Despite the fact that this new England kit has been quite problematic for OTP, we still love it. Firstly, we posted a picture asking whether this was the new England kit (we had previously done this with another potential design). Unfortunately, the second one turned [. Click to continue reading...

UPDATE: For those of you who have been following the progress of this story, it was the new England kit. Unfortunately, the image belonged to a well-known publisher who owns the copyright to the image. The photograph that appeared in the story below has now been removed to reflect this. If you didn#8217;t see it, it [. Click to continue reading...

Missing - presumed crap: England kit manufacturer Umbro seems to have gone into denial over the existence of its last three England kits. No sooner had I posted this photo of possibly the new England shirt than an email landed in my inbox from Tease Marketing who, as this page shows, are helping Umbro to launch [. Click to continue reading...

Xabi chic Spain launched its new Confederations Cup kit yesterday and, for some reason best known to themselves, all the players had whiskers painted on their face. This gave Liverpool#8217;s Xabi Alonso a look that was straight out of Oz. See the rest of the feline footballers after the jump. Apparently, the whiskers were in fact a [. Click to continue reading...