Manchester United to Add Premier League Badges for Ipswich Match
Manchester United will tweak their look this weekend – not for style, but to fall into line with Premier League rules.
When Ipswich visit Old Trafford on Sunday, United’s shirts will carry official Premier League badges on both sleeves, correcting an oversight from the opening day defeat at Hull City.
Double badges after opening-day slip
League regulations are clear: every top-flight club must display the Premier League badge and the “No Room For Racism” element on the right sleeve. If a club does not have a commercial partner on the left sleeve, the same official badge must appear there as well.
United tick the first box. The second? They missed it at Hull.
With no sleeve sponsor in place, the club should have worn the Premier League logo on both arms in that 2-0 loss. They didn’t. The right sleeve carried the correct branding; the left was left bare.
There will be no punishment. SunSport understands United will avoid any sanction, with both the club and the league fully aware of the mistake and satisfied it will be fixed before Sunday’s home opener against the newly-promoted Tractor Boys.
Commercial gap on the arm
The issue stems from a rare empty space on a Manchester United shirt.
Old Trafford’s £20million-a-year sleeve deal with DXC Technology expired in May, ending an eight-year run of branded sleeves. Talks over a new left-sleeve sponsor are ongoing, and United had hoped to unveil a fresh commercial partner before the season started.
That hasn’t happened yet. The club wore their new third kit on Saturday without a sleeve sponsor, and the same commercial gap remains heading into the Ipswich game – only now it will be filled by a second Premier League crest in line with Rule M.15.
That regulation states that if a club lacks a commercial left-sleeve sponsor, the official league badge must be applied to that sleeve as well as the right. Chelsea, Sunderland and Crystal Palace all ran out with the iconic lion on both arms over the opening weekend.
United will now join them.
Money still flowing in
The empty sleeve doesn’t mean the commercial machine has stalled.
Earlier in August, United signed a record multi-year training kit sponsorship with Betway, worth around £20million per season. On the front of the match shirt, Snapdragon took over as main sponsor at the start of the 2024/25 campaign.
So the badge fix is simple. The business question is not.
How long will one of world football’s biggest clubs leave that left sleeve unsold?
