Teams Need to Stop Creating Kit Images With AI: Al-Nassr…

Football clubs including Al-Nassr and Como 1907 have increasingly replaced traditional studio photography with AI-generated imagery for their commercial kit rollouts, leading to significant product inaccuracies. This shift toward synthetic marketing has resulted in visual misrepresentations that fail to capture the technical specifications of the actual garments.

What happened

Following a similar incident involving Como 1907, Al-Nassr utilized an AI model to recreate their 2026-27 third kit for their e-commerce platform instead of conducting a physical photoshoot. This reliance on generative tools led to immediate and glaring contradictions between the digital images and the physical product.

Specific technical errors included the rendering of standard, thin shoulder stripes instead of the authentic oversized Three Stripes design introduced around the 2026 World Cup. Furthermore, the AI-generated graphics omitted the engineered ventilation holes present in the actual fabric. The most significant error involved the branding tag on the lower hem of the jersey; the AI image displayed an "Aeroready" tag, whereas the genuine authentic player-issue shirt features the updated "Climacool+" designation. This is particularly problematic as Adidas retired the "Aeroready" branding following the 2026 World Cup, and the label was historically restricted to replica fan shirts rather than high-end match-spec jerseys.

These errors highlight a broader issue regarding club marketing and retail departments prioritizing budget-cutting and time-saving measures over accurate product representation. Because AI algorithms lack an understanding of technical garment specifications, fabric weights, and official template updates, the resulting images mislead consumers who are purchasing high-value items based on faulty digital mockups.