It started with a World Cup match — and a jersey that stood out.
Watching the 2022 tournament, U.S. Virgin Islands Soccer Federation General Secretary Firas Idheileh kept coming back to Senegal — not just how they played, but how they presented themselves. The team’s white home kit carried a bold chevron in green, yellow, and red with a star at the center, pulled straight from the national flag. The green alternate leaned into the team’s “Lions of Teranga” identity, with a stylized lion worked into the design.
You didn’t have to guess who they were.
“When you see a team’s jersey, you want it to be something you recognize and resonate with immediately,” Idheileh said in a call with the Source Monday.
At the time, he was just a year or two into his work with the federation, and as his role grew, eventually becoming general secretary, so did the opportunity to shape how the territory shows up on the international stage. Along with performance, that also meant identity, he said.
The federation’s rebrand, centered around a new set of kits, was built with that in mind.
The two primary looks — a blue-and-yellow set and a black alternate — both incorporate the Virgin Islands madras, a fabric formally adopted as a cultural symbol of the territory, with each colored thread carrying meaning: blues tied to the surrounding waters, yellow to the Ginger Thomas, green to the land, red to strength, pink to the conch shell, and white to the flour-sack clothing that reflects resilience and resourcefulness. Woven together, it becomes something people here recognize instantly.
“We wanted it to feel like home,” Idheileh said.
On the blue-and-yellow kits, that identity runs even deeper. The designs incorporate patterns inspired by the petroglyphs at Reef Bay on St. John — carvings created by Indigenous Taíno peoples that remain some of the most recognizable historic symbols in the territory. It’s a quiet detail, but a deliberate one, tying the present-day team to a much older story.
The black jersey, used as the alternate, takes a different approach. Still built on the same madras foundation, it leans into a sharper, more minimal look.
“It’s bold. It’s confident,” Idheileh said. “That’s who we are. We’re a proud people here — there’s energy, there’s passion, there’s competitiveness.”
That version is the one that ended up in the spotlight Saturday.
By then, crowds were already trailing popular YouTuber IShowSpeed across St. Thomas — from downtown stops to the Carnival Village and along the parade route. The Federation’s black jersey showed up in the middle of it all, worn on a livestream that quickly carried it far beyond the territory.
“For us, that’s everything,” Idheileh said. “To see something we worked on here being shown like that, it puts the Virgin Islands in front of people in a different way. It’s pride. It’s representation.”
Since the stream, the federation has seen a noticeable uptick in interest, with people reaching out across social media asking how to purchase the jerseys. Lance Chardon, the Federation’s spokesperson, said they are available for order online, with a limited supply also available locally through the Federation’s offices at a lower $65 price-point that also gives residents a chance to pick them up on island. To purchase within the territory, residents can call 340-719-9707 and either pay in cash or by PayPal.
The kits are produced in partnership with Hummel, the Denmark-based sportswear company known for outfitting national teams, marking a significant step for the Federation as one of the first in the region to work with Hummel North America. But for Idheileh, the significance of the moment goes beyond the partnership.
The goal was always simple: create something that people from here would recognize immediately — and something the rest of the world could learn to recognize too.
On a crowded Saturday in St. Thomas, that’s exactly what happened.
