The Irish football club Bohemian FC unveiled its third kit for the 2026 season in collaboration with the electronic music band Massive Attack, with 30% of the proceeds going to medical aid organizations in Cuba.
The club's announcement on Instagram confirmed that the proceeds will be distributed between the Cuba Vive Medical Aid Appeal, part of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, and mediCuba-Europe, two organizations that send medicines, surgical equipment, and hospital supplies to the island.
The garment, manufactured by O'Neills, is inspired by the historical ties between Ireland and Cuba, with explicit references to Che Guevara, who had Irish ancestry on his father's side.
The design features vertical stripes in khaki and black, a red block on the chest with a white star inspired by the Cuban flag, and the Massive Attack logo on the front.
The hem label features the iconic image of Che Guevara created by Irish illustrator Jim Fitzpatrick, while the inner tape of the collar bears the phrase "Love is a doing word," taken from the song "Teardrop" by the British group.
The back of the neck features a quote from the father of the guerrilla fighter, Ernesto Guevara Lynch: "In my son's veins ran the blood of the Irish rebels," directly alluding to Che's Irish heritage.
The garment also incorporates excerpts from the anti-imperialist speech that Che Guevara delivered in 1965 at the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Algiers, regarded as one of his most radical texts.
The Cuba Vive Medical Aid Appeal works alongside the union of health workers in Cuba and the Ministry of Health of the regime, and as of the launch date, it had already completed six shipments of medical supplies to the island, which is facing a severe humanitarian crisis with a chronic shortage of medications.
The initiative is part of the long activist history of the Dublin club, and serves as another proof of the propagandistic reach of the Cuban regime among the international left.
Since 2020, Bohemian FC has turned its jerseys into tools for social advocacy: that year, it launched a jersey in collaboration with Amnesty International under the slogan "Refugees Welcome"; in 2021, it partnered with the band Fontaines D.C. for homeless causes; in 2023, it allocated 30% of the profits from a jersey to medical aid for Palestine; and in 2024, it teamed up with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
This time, it romanticizes a repressive regime that takes advantage of international aid.
According to the specialized portal Sport for Business, this cause-related t-shirt strategy has generated over one million euros in three years for the club and the organizations it collaborates with.
The jersey, which is the third kit of Bohemian FC for the 2026 season, arrives at a time when the island is facing one of its worst public health crises, with hospitals lacking basic supplies and a population increasingly reliant on external aid to access essential medications, while the regime's elite finds no other solution than to entrench themselves in their privileges.
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