Why have male professional footballers started wearing what appear to be sports bras under their shirts?
Apparently, the official line is that they’re fitness trackers. Hmmm…
But doubt that it’s a gesture of solidarity with their female counterparts!
They’re vests but with six pack (is that the term?) flashing opportunities.
Lucrative sponsoring maybe?
‘Joggers nipple’ protection?
It is for that Zippo shaped satellite thing between their shoulder blades, isn’t it - I didn’t know footballers had them. Rugby players have had them for ages.
Wonder what they wear under their shorts, Hello sailor😂
The vest/bra does say STATsports so I’d guess it contains some kind of measuring device.
Clearly their branding isn’t up to much as I am the first person to do a Google search and then post this link
@vero clearly knows her stuff as, as she says, the vest/bra’s purpose is to hold a small device between the shoulder blades for monitoring and such. Looks quite interesting, although as the most it would monitor and track would be my walk from the settee to the fridge and back, perhaps not something I’d need…
Is it so they can spot a heart attack, or so they can use AI to show fancy graphics on TV
STATsports only seem to work with Arsenal at club level at the moment so at this stage I’d assume it was something they have instigated. Whether they’re using it as part of their marketing online or broadcast I don’t know (do they still have an Arsenal TV?) but on the whole I’d assume it was either for fitness, or because STATsports handed them a ton of money, or both, rather than for TV.
So they can see how far they have run, who they have intercepted or otherwise interacted with, where they were at vital moments, how much hanging about or pointless running they have done etc
Vaguely related to this (well, it’s sports-related and about tracking players, etc…) did anyone see the 1st episode of the first series of “Qui Veut Etre Mon Associe?” or French Dragons’ Den? It had these really smart shin pads called TibTop that could be used to track a player’s movement on the pitch, how fast they ran, how high they jumped, etc… It looks like the stuff that’s normally reserved for professional players but is designed for amateur teams. Very impressive stuff.
I can answer that, about 90 minutes 
A friend of mine who used to work as a physio for one of the top rugby teams could look on her iPad and see the speed and distance players had run, the number of tackles, ground contacts etc. All from the shoulder gadgets– and of course the gazillions of tech behind them.
Thanks to everyone above for enlightening me, particularly Vero. Perhaps part of me had hoped for some more exotic explanation, but on the other hand it’s reassuring to learn that they’re not cross-dressers, but still good manly chaps.
Maybe it is to circumvent the rule that prohibits them from taking off their shirts when ‘celebrating’ a goal. They can claim that they are not completely naked …
