Shirt swapping or jersey swapping is a tradition in sports where players of opposing teams swap jerseys with each other at the end of a match as a sign of mutual respect.

Shirt swapping is a long-held tradition in association football.

The first shirt swap is believed to have taken place at a match between France and England on May 14, 1931; the French team lost and asked to keep the English team's shirts as a memento.^[1][2]

A further example took place at the 1954 FIFA World Cup.^[2]

In the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Pelé and Bobby Moore swapped shirts.^[1][3] Following this, the tradition spread to other individual players.^[4]

Jersey swapping also occurs in the National Football League,^[5] where it has become common since the mid-2010s, getting the tradition from association football.^[6][7]

During his final season in the National Basketball Association in 2018–19, basketball player Dwyane Wade exchanged jerseys after every game with a player on the opposing team.^[8]

Jersey swapping has also occurred in Major League Baseball.^[9][10] Joe Kelly swapped his jersey with a Mariachi musician for his charro jacket in celebration of his Mexican heritage and wore it to the Los Angeles Dodgers' championship trip to the White House following their victory in the 2020 World Series.^[11]

Politicians sometimes swap shirts as acts of diplomacy, often before their respective teams play against each other. One instance was Boris Johnson swapping national team jerseys with Juan Carlos Varela before their countries faced each other in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.^[12]

• Association football culture