Oranges give OM fans a red face
New Olympique de Marseille strips have a spelling mistake
A SIMPLE spelling mistake has left Olympique de Marseille football club with red faces - as they got the word "orange" wrong on their new strips.
The reversible jerseys carry a quote from a song by Marseille rapper Akhenaton, the lead singer of group IAM, but it is not in grammatical French.
It reads: "Et nos cœurs sont oranges, comme au couchant sont les flots" but the word "orange" does not need the final "S" which makes it read "And our hearts are oranges, like the waves at sunset". French adjectives that are derived from an object do not agree in number or gender with the noun.
Sports shops across France have the strips on sale now at €150 for the Techfit version and €90 for the ordinary one. OM will wear them for the first time in a league match at Sochaux and then in the Europa League.
The strips are a world first: being black with orange lettering on one side and orange with black lettering on the reverse. OM will play showing the black side.
They already use white strips for home games and blue strips for away matches.
Designed by franco-Argentinian artist Pablo Reinoso and Akhenaton, they use a Planet Mars graphic with the words interwoven.
Orange is used as part of the club's fight against racism: echoing fans who turn their bomber jackets inside out to show the orange lining.
The Akhenaton verse, from his song Lumières Orange, continues: "That means that despite what separates us, we are all equal. The colours are those of our values and ideals."
