Amsterdam football club Ajax’s Bob Marley inspired new jersey presented on Friday has sold out in a single day.

The design of the club’s third kit for the 2021/2022 season, a deal between Adidas, the club and the Marley family, features red, yellow and green accents and three small birds embroidered just below the collar on the back of the shirt in reference to Bob Marley’s iconic song.

The story goes that Ajax fans took Three Little Birds to their hearts during a friendly against Cardiff FC. When they were asked to wait before leaving the stand at the end of the game, the stadium DJ played it for them to while away the time. It has since become the club’s anthem. In 2018 Ky-mani Marley, Bob Marley’s son, came to the Ajax stadium to sing the song to an enthusiastic crowd.

Ajax commercial director Menno Geelen said the club had expected fans to be keen on the new kit but that the sales exceeded expectation. ‘We sold a record number of shirts in one day, four times as many as any other Ajax shirt to date. It’s unique,’ Geelen said.

Reportedly tens of thousands of shirts were snapped up by fans.

Bob Marley’s daughter Cedella Marley said she was ‘beyond touched’ the song had been made into the club’s anthem. ‘Soccer was everything to my father..and to use his words.. ‘football is freedom’.

Football supporters in other teams in the Netherlands do not necessarily agree, however, after stiff warnings from the caretaker health minister Hugo de Jonge on Monday to stay with bums in seats or risk further restrictions.