The South African Football Association (SAFA) today announces the official return of the 1996 Heritage Kit from Bafana Bafana’s most celebrated era, reinterpreted as an official premium knitted jersey for 2026. As the sole custodian and owner of the intellectual property, SAFA has approved the production and retail of this historic release under the official licensed programme by the premium leisurewear brand, Old School. The SAFA Heritage Kit connects the historic moment Bafana Bafana are stepping into with the era that first made the world take notice.
A JERSEY THAT CARRIES A NATION’S HISTORY
The 1996 jersey is inseparable from the greatest chapter in South African football. It was worn during the build-up to the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations - won on home soil. More than the trophies and the results, what the country remembers is the spirit of that era: a team that played with joy, a nation that believed together, and a green-and-gold shirt that became the symbol of both.
That jersey has never really left. It lives in the photographs, the highlight reels, and the conversations whenever South Africans talk about the football that made them fall in love with Bafana. Now, 30 years later, as this generation prepares to carry the green and gold onto the world stage again, SAFA is officially bringing it back.
THE HERITAGE KIT: PRODUCT DETAILS
The 1996 Heritage Kit is not a replica. SAFA has authorized the reinterpretation of the classic jersey design as an official premium knitted soccer jersey - true to the look and feeling of the era, built to a standard the legacy deserves. The result is something supporters can wear with the same pride as the players who first pulled on those colours thirty years ago.
Key details:
• Official SAFA-licensed product, produced by Old School
• Premium knitted construction - a contemporary reinterpretation of the original 1996 Away and Third designs
• Available in XS-3XL
• Price: From R1999
• On sale from 5 June 2026 through official Bafana Bafana and SAFA channels and at Old School retail stores and online platform
AN ARTIST’S REINTERPRETATION
Old School has brought South African artist Stephen Langa into the Heritage Kit campaign as a collaborating artist, reinterpreting the 1996 jersey through his own artistic lens. His work is being captured as part of the campaign shoot alongside South African football icon Doctor Khumalo, anchoring the launch in both the artistry and the legacy of the jersey.
That jersey, and that era, are iconic for a reason. The stripes, the colours, the way those kits looked on the pitch in 1996 and 1998 - they have always carried something beyond sport. They live in people the way a great piece of art does. Langa is treating the jersey exactly that way, honouring it as the cultural artefact it is, and reinterpreting it through a contemporary South African artistic lens. His piece draws on the meaning of “Old School” itself, threading the jersey into a setting of classical caps, vintage interiors and the small heritage objects that mark generations of South African home life - and placing the moment squarely inside a home, with the trophy on its way back.
Prints of Langa’s finished piece will be installed in every Old School store nationally as part of the Heritage Kit campaign, sitting alongside the knitted jerseys, with his name visible on every print. The work gives the campaign a dimension that product alone cannot carry.
A NATION BEHIND THE TEAM
South Africa is a football country. With Bafana heading to the World Cup, that feeling is building again. Football Fridays are back. Send-offs are being planned. A nation is starting to believe - and that spirit, the same one that carried Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana through 1996 and 1998, is stirring once more.
For supporters who lived through those years, this jersey carries memories that need no introduction. For a new generation growing up watching Bafana, it is an invitation into the history that shaped South African football. For all of them, it is something to wear as they unite behind the team this World Cup.