Puma says sorry for shredded red Swiss shirts at Euro 2016

Xherdan Shaqiri has brought some light relief to the grave controversy surrounding the number of ripped Switzerland shirts in his side’s Euro 2016 match against France on Sunday night.

In the build-up to the tournament, attacker Embolo had to change his top in the friendly against Montenegro, and the Basel attacker said after the France match: “We have had a few problems with the jersey”. “The kit manager is not fully ready yet, but we are”.

In a statement, Adidas said: “We are looking into what happened”.

PUMA, which is the tournament’s third biggest kit supplier after Nike and Adidas, said its analysis of the Swiss jersey had discovered that in one batch of material, “yarns had been damaged during the production process, leading to a weakening in the final garment”.

“I hope PUMA doesn’t produce condoms”, Switzerland winger Zherdan Shaquiri quipped in an interview with Swiss newspaper Blick.

The game, which saw Switzerland join France into the knockout phase, was not unduly rough or dirty, yet three times in the first half Swiss players had to go to the sidelines to swap their torn tops.

Puma yesterday blamed a manufacturing flaw for the torn jerseys. “Our product team are now investigating the situation and we will provide a further update once this investigation is complete”.

Adidas didn’t emerge unscathed from Sunday’s equipment brouhaha – notably when Switzerland’s Valon Behrami tackled French forward Antoine Griezmann in the second half, his studs puncturing and immediately deflating the $160 Adidas football that is Euro 2016’s official ball. “We will release information as soon as we know the reason”, a spokeswoman for the company in the southern German town of Herzogenaurach said.

“It was annoying. We’re only in the group stage and having a pitch in that state already is not a good thing”, said France coach Didier Deschamps.

Switzerland game was not a banner performance from Puma.