Borussia Dortmund got their Champions League campaign off to a winning start on Wednesday night, but their 2-1 victory over Turkish champions Besiktas was overshadowed by fan anger at Dortmund's choice of kit.

Dortmund took to the field in Istanbul wearing a controversial new third strip, produced by kit sponsor Puma as part of a range of similar designs at other European clubs. Much to the annoyance of Dortmund supporters, however, their club's famous logo was barely visible, printed yellow on yellow.

"We regret that fans are angry and we would like to apologize," Puma chairman Bjorn Gulden, himself a former professional footballer, told DPA on Friday. "We have taken the feedback to heart and will take it into account when designing future kits."

But those words seem unlikely to placate Dortmund supporters, who have issued scathing criticism of their own club, whose professional football division is five percent owned by Puma.

"This kit is a no-go for two reasons," wrote online BVB fanzine Schwatzgelb. "Firstly, it has no visible club badge. Secondly, supporters feel conned because the club's public communication has been terrible."

Controversial Puma kits

Fan suspicion was first aroused back in May when leaked images showed prototype kits designed by the German sportswear giants for several European football clubs, including Manchester City, AC Milan, Olympique Marseille and Shakhtar Donetsk, as well as Bundesliga sides Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Rather than traditional club badges, the kits featured the names of the clubs or cities spelled out across the chest, with club sponsors below and Puma's logo placed centrally above.

Fans voiced their objection at the time during a digital fan council meeting with club marketing director Carsten Cramer, while the clubs' ultras hung banners outside the club offices reading: "Cramer: the BVB badge is not a toy for your bonus" and "Those who don't honor the badge are not worthy of Borussia."

Dortmund acknowledged the criticism in a tweet, insisting that the leaked images didn't resemble what the kits would actually look like and asking for patience.

It was the last communication on the topic until Cramer told the Kicker Meets DAZN podcast last week that "the criticism was justified … so much so that we didn't just take it on board, but also considered how we could correct the issue."

That correction, it emerged in Istanbul on Wednesday, was to change the word "Dortmund" to the abbreviation "BVB 09" and to add the club badge – albeit barely visible, printed yellow on yellow.

Lucrative sponsorship deal

According to research by fanzine Schwatzgelb, the kit was a condition of a contract extension Puma signed with Borussia Dortmund back in November 2019, extending the cooperation until 2028 and guaranteeing the Bundesliga side an estimated €30 million per year, or around a quarter of a billion over the whole contract period, according to reports.

German business newspaper Handelsblatt said at the time that Puma's market share in the football industry was less than 10 percent, and that it was determined to make up ground on rivals Adidas and Nike. The positioning of the Puma logo in prime position on the jerseys of several top European football clubs at the expense of the clubs' own logos would appear to fit that strategy of increasing visibility.

"Club officials all know what value the badge has for fans and that they were overstepping a mark, sacrificing it for a Puma marketing ploy," wrote Schwatzgelb, also highlighting the fact that, unusually, the club didn't advertize or market the new kit in the build-up to the Besiktas game. "When even the BVB logo is not untouchable, fans have to ask themselves if there are any taboos left at all."

Marketing director Cramer himself recognized the difficulty of balancing supporters concerns with the financial demands of modern football:

"I'm definitely not the most popular employee at Borussia Dortmund because it's my job to get the most out of the club commercially," he admitted. "Marketing for a football club is a real tightrope."