Vatican City

Finally adding Vatican City to the collection! Vatican City shirts are extremely hard to get and this has also taken me a good few years to finally own. Vatican City, like Monaco, is not part of FIFA, but are often targeted by national team football shirt collectors because of it being a fully-recognized country.

Just like with Monaco, you wouldn’ t think that they have a national team. They do, but also kind of don’t. Actual Vatican citizenship isn’t really a thing that many have, and the guys that make up the team are (mostly) all Italian. That said – it IS possible to have a Vatican City passport, and those passport holders have played on the team before. So why is it a Vatican City team if they’re Italians? – Well, like I said, Vatican citizenship isn’t really a thing, so instead, the Vatican City national team is a representative team with Italians that work in the Vatican City or have other connections to the country. So one might argue that it’s not really a national team – but that isn’t really possible to have for the Vatican City, so this team is widely regarded as the national team of Vatican City, even though it’s just a representative team. Similarly, the Vatican also runs a national league with teams consisting of employees in the museums, hospitals – the Swiss Guards even have a team. Recently, Vatican City also fielded their first women’s team!

So, Vatican City shirts… Because this team is acknowledged as the Vatican City national team, the shirts are extremely sought-after. You have the Celtic-fans and Catholics who want it for the banter, and then you have the many football shirt collectors who want it as a prized part of the collection. I have been after a Vatican City shirt quite actively, so I have contacted basically anyone you can imagine within Vatican City football and their shirts’ manufacturer. When I’ve gotten a response, I’ve been told that the demand for these shirts is extreme and that there is no way that it would be possible to meet this demand. Therefore, they don’t really give their shirts away and they are not planning on working on meeting the demand with shirts, for instance with having replicas produced, as it is beyond their capacity, which is quite understandable. I have been in talks with Sportika over a long time, and I have convinced them to produce replicas of the yellow and white version of the Vatican City shirt if the team allows it, but those plans are postponed until further notice because of the pandemic. So there is no way to know if the production of replicas will actually be carried out. If you currently already own the yellow and white Sportika Vatican City shirt, it is one of Luke’s fakes. He unfortunately produces fakes of this shirt, and Sportika has not produced replicas of these. As for the matchworn ones, they still use these for their matches, so these are not given away. Unfortunately I’ve seen the yellow and white Sportika Vatican City shirt in a few collections already – I’m sorry to tell you that they’re fake. 

Only few Vatican City shirts exist which is also why they are extra rare. The team has actually existed for many years, but they don’t play very often and the re-use their shirts for multiple games. I may miss a shirt during this timeline, but I’ve done quite a bit of research so I don’t think so. As for specific matches, it has been hard to verify all the games where a specific shirt was used, so I won’t mention the games the particular shirts were worn in, but these shirts have all been worn by the team. The Vatican City shirt timeline goes like this:

The first shirts used were made by Select, I’ve seen only 2 collectors with this shirt so it is extremely rare. Well, probably only about 15 of them exist. As far as I can tell, these shirts were the shirts used for Vatican City’s first game(s), so should be used at least against San Marino in 1994, although no photos can be found from this match.

Next, they used a shirt made by Emme. Apparently some guy managed to purchase them all back in the day after the team started using a new shirt. So from what I can understand, he has all those shirts with shorts and socks, including certificates that verify the shirts’ authenticity. Apparently he agrees to sell one for a fortune to a collector if he eventually deems the collector worthy of it. This Vatican City shirt is a bit more common to see in collections compared to the Select one, I think I’ve seen it 6 times in collections – which still makes it extremely rare! I don’t know if all those Emme Vatican City shirts out there are provided by this guy, but it seems like it. 

Next is a shirt by a brand I don’t know. It’s not unbranded, but I can’t make out the logo and I have never seen it before. In fact, I hadn’t seen this shirt before making the research for this post. According to my research this shirt has been worn at least twice and in the mid 2000s. It’s simply white and yellow, like the Vatican City shirt should be, and says “Vaticano” vertically down the left side. I have never seen this shirt in any collection!

Then, I’ve found this shirt. I have next to no information about it. A fellow Twitter-user said, that it was probably worn in 2011 against Monaco. It features a Vatican logo that is not used on other shirts, and there is a manufacturer’s name on it, but it’s basically impossible to read it. I have never seen this shirt in any collection!

Next is the Diadora shirt. The first shirt to feature a Vatican City “FA” logo (an FA logo that has since changed), and was worn for the first time in 2008. It was worn as late as 2013 too, where they played against Monaco. This seems to be the shirt that has been worn the most after the current Sportika shirt. I have never seen this shirt in any collection!

Next is the Asics shirt. A really nice shirt if you ask me, actually, once again white and yellow and with the old “FA” logo. From what I can tell this shirt was not worn many times, and the Diadora shirt that was used before this shirt replaced it later on as well. This Asics shirt did also have a comeback in 2015. From late 2000s to mid 2010s the team switched between the Diadora and the Asics shirt. I have never seen this shirt in any collection!

Next is the beautiful Sportika shirt. Still white and yellow, it also features the St. Peter’s Basilica on the front – a great unique detail. In terms of design this is by far my favourite Vatican City shirt. The team has used this shirt for many of their recent games and is still used today. This appears to also be the shirt used the most by the team, as they have actually been quite active in recent years. I have seen this shirt in a few collections – they are all fake though. Genuine versions of these shirts are basically impossible to have as they still use these shirts.

Finally is the last shirt – the first Vatican City shirt that is not yellow and white. It’s this very shirt that I’m extremely happy and grateful to now own, an orange version that features the new Vatican City “FA” logo as well as a quote by Papa Francesco (Pope Francis) that says “La Solidarietà Supera Il Dolore” (Solidarity Overcomes Pain). From what I can find, this shirt has only been used for one game. I believe they have since played more games, but they’re back to the white and yellow Sportika shirt. I have not seen this shirt in any collection before, so I am super lucky and honored to have it!

Bonus shirt: Vatican City started fielding a women’s team that use this Givova kit. It’s a plain yellow shirt with the new Vatican City “FA” logo on it. From what I can see this is the only shirt the women’s team has used in the few games they have played so far. I have never seen this shirt in any collection!

Next we have the Joma shirt that was actually commercially available and officially the team’s match shirt. The team kept using a different Joma shirt, see further down, which caused doubt that this shirt was actually the shirt intended for matches. I was in contact with one of the team leaders who confirmed that it was indeed the official match shirt, although even to this day it has yet to be worn. Personally I count shirts that are intended to be used or officially a team’s shirt as a shirt of that country, so I included it in this list. It’s a pretty good shirt, even says Vaticano Calcio, but I believe this is otherwise a template shirt from Joma, since other shirts with the same pattern can be found. Given that it was actually available, it is not too rare – I also chose to purchase it. 

So what did they wear instead? They wore this plain yellow Joma shirt for matches instead. No one knows why and the team leader couldn’t tell me why. It is just yellow, that’s literally all there is to it. Given that this one is not available, I haven’t seen it in any collection and it will probably stay that way!

The women’s team also currently wears Joma – although with a slightly different design. A slightly different design makes it a different shirt – so it will be included. Only the collar is different! Haven’t seen this shirt in any collection!

And finally, the newest shirt, the 50 year anniversary shirt. So far, only the women’s team has worn it, but will probably be used by both the men’s and women’s team from time to time in the coming years. It’s a great shirt with Saint Peter’s Basilica at the back, and looks to be slightly better quality than the other Joma shirt that was made available. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that this shirt is commercially available too, which however also means that it won’t be rare. 

That should be the entire timeline of Vatican City shirts ever used. No replicas have ever been produced, so any genuine Vatican Shirts out there (yes, fakes exists) are produced for the team, and thus only very few of each shirt exist. They’ve used 7 different shirts over the years which means that probably only about 100 genuine Vatican City shirts exist, making it extremely difficult to find any genuine Vatican City shirt. I was extremely lucky to eventually have a contact in Vatican City who wanted to help me. I wasn’t informed that a shirt was sent my way, so I wasn’t expecting any. So you can imagine my face when I received a package from Vatican City – filled with a ton of cool stamps. Just receiving a package from the world’s smallest country was really cool.