Away colours

[4] The only times they wore brown were for games at Philadelphia and New York, when the Eagles and Giants chose to wear white.

In 1964, the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams wore white regularly for their home games.

While most teams switched back to their coloured uniforms the next year, the Rams and Browns still regularly wore white until the 1970s.

[5][13] Teams in cities with hot climates often choose white jerseys at home during the first half of the season,[14] because light colours absorb and retain less heat in sunlight – as such, the Dolphins, who stay white year-round, will typically use their coloured jerseys for home night games.

During the successful Joe Gibbs era, Washington chose to wear white exclusively at home in the 1980s and 1990s,[5] including the 1982 NFC Championship Game against Dallas.

[16][17] Super Bowl rules later changed to allow the designated home team to pick their choice of jersey.

White was chosen by the Cowboys (XIII, XXVII), the Redskins (XVII), the Pittsburgh Steelers (XL), the Denver Broncos (50), the New England Patriots (LII),[18] and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (LV).

Occasionally, teams playing against Dallas at home wear their white jerseys to attempt to invoke the "curse",[20] as when the Philadelphia Eagles hosted the Cowboys in the 1980 NFC Championship Game.

[27] National Federation of State High School Associations rules, which are used by every state for high school football except Texas, require the visiting team to wear a white jersey and the home team to wear a dark jersey.

While a team's primary kit rarely undergoes major changes, the second colours tend to vary over time and sometimes by tournament.

[29] A.C. Milan chose to wear all-white in the 2007 UEFA Champions League final as they considered it their "lucky shirt" (Italian: maglia fortunata).

[30] In some title-deciding matches, a team has won the game wearing its away kit, but changed to home shirts for the trophy presentation – most notably when Spain won the 2010 World Cup final, changing from dark-blue away to red home shirts to lift the trophy.

[32] In England in 1890, the Football League, which had been formed two years earlier, ruled that no two member teams could register similar colours, so as to avoid clashes.

The old FA Cup rules, with almost identical wording, are still used in semis and finals by many county and district football associations in England.

FIFA rules state that in exceptional cases, both teams may be asked by the referee or match commissioner to wear different colours.

[40] This is most likely to happen in World Cup matches with large numbers of black-and-white television viewers, so that the teams' kits also differ in tone (light and dark).

In 1957 Scotland borrowed home team Switzerland's white away shirts to avoid clashing on black-and-white television.

[43] Netherlands and Brazil played their 1974 World Cup game in white and dark blue respectively, rather than their first choices of orange and yellow.

FIFA's regulations for the 2014 World Cup mandate that "teams need to have two very distinguishable shirts – where one is a lighter colour and the other is a darker one".

Denmark and Australia also wore their away kits in a group stage match, after Danish player Thomas Delaney revealed in a phone call to a radio station that he is colourblind.

[54] In some cases, individual clubs may have informal agreements around what guernsey designs to wear in order to avoid clashes.

By the end of the 19th century, it became common for teams to wear white uniforms at home, and grey in road games.

The Kansas City Athletics home and road uniforms were changed by Charles O. Finley in 1963, to the colours of gold and green.

This convention continued well after its original premise was nullified by the issuance of multiple uniforms and the growth of the laundromat industry.

Examples include the Rangers (2009-19) and Marlins, whose alternate orange jersey is the only one of the team's four to feature the nickname instead of the city or state name.

The World Rugby rules for tours do not state this outright: it is the responsibility of the WR CEO or representative "to resolve the matter", but "in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the Host Union shall be entitled to wear its home kit.

[83] However, in the 2011 Rugby World Cup final between those teams, France won the toss and chose to play in its white away kit.

France's team manager Jo Maso said this decision was because of "the welcome they'd received from the people of New Zealand, the faultless organisation of the tournament and the honour and pleasure of playing... [at] Eden Park".

[82] England used an all-black second kit at the 2011 World Cup, which caused controversy in the host nation, as black is the home colour of New Zealand.

[86] In international rugby, the need for second kits arises most often in the Six Nations, where Scotland, France and Italy all play in different shades of blue.