Are Football Kit Leaks Staged?

A design for Chelsea FC’s 2021/22 kit was ‘leaked’ but was it on purpose?

Source Footyheadlines.com

Photos of new football kits seemed to be leaked daily. Perhaps the servers of Nike and Adidas are incredibly easy to hack? Or maybe all of their design employees love to get drunk and airdrop kit designs to passing strangers?

The notion that the world's largest sports companies, with their departments dedicated to IP protection and secrecy, would have vulnerable servers and some seriously bored employees, seems highly unlikely.

So, it strikes me as odd that the kit leaks could happen by accident. Yet, the sheer volume of ‘leaks’ is unnerving, to the point that there are only two possibilities

1. A global collective of hackers, journalists, and fans are tirelessly working to uncover secret photos of football kits so that everyone has the chance to leave a useless comment on Instagram

or,

2. The Football clubs and kit suppliers are leaking the images themselves.

I know, there is technically a third possible explanation. The photos are fakes cooked up by eager football designers who want to pretend they work for Nike, or even desperate journalists clamoring to create some buzz around their football website.