Chagos Islands 2 + 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Falkland Islands (4:0) | Friendly | 2023 in Surrey

Teams walking onto the pitch
vs. Panjab (0:6) | Friendly | 2019 in the UK

I have already written a very long and extensive blog post about the history of the Chagossians and the Chagos national team (see the Chagos Islands post), so I will focus on the shirt and the status quo of the team on this, starting with the latter. At some point in 2024, the team did rebrand and rename itself from Chagos Islands national team to Chagos BIOT, thus incorporating the British colonial name for the territory the Chagossians come from - the British Indian Ocean Territory or BIOT in short. That might be an excuse to get another shirt of what is essentially a new team at some point, but I am honestly not really sold to the idea, yet. I get that it did help the team to get UK government grants and that surely is a good thing - but it also meant that the Chagossians did somehow accept the colonial status quo the team has very much fought against for decades. I love the team and the guys running it, but I am genuinely a bit sad that there was no other option than this.

Anyways, these shirts are thus the last home and away shirts of the Chagos Islands under their old name and branding. Especially the home shirt is absolutely fantastic, with an outline of the Chagos Atoll, the main atoll of the archipelago, all over the back of the shirt. Hope & Glory, the manufacturer, really did an amazing job with both designs, in my opion, as they are both flashy, bright, beautiful, but still not overdone. Just the right amount of into your face. That said, i am more than happy that I was able to get both straight from the manufacturer for around 50€ each some years ago.