Umbro Steals Nike USA Kit Design?!

Earlier this month, Umbro Algeria released the new away kit for Mouloudia Club d'Alger. It's a design - a more or less direct rip off of the 2018 USA home kit by Nike.

MC Alger 2019 Away Kit

This picture shows the new MC Alger away shirt by Umbro.

The new MC Alger jersey is white with a fading green and red graphic print on the front. This graphic is a complete copy of the one used by Nike on the current USA home kit.

The result is a spectacular kit, but is it OK for a brand like Umbro to simply copy a design in its entirety? We sometimes see quite similar kit designs, but such a direct rip-off is usually reserved for lower-tier brands and fakes.

The reason behind all of this is that Umbro's brand is managed by a different company in Algeria, PMG. This is actually the case for Umbro in many countries. Doing this enables brands to cash in on the brand value they've created without having to deal with the cost of running business.

But as we can see in this case, it can also lead to rather unfortunate results as can be seen in this case.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below.