Just imagine if Neymar had scored the most spectacular hat-trick in World Cup history for Brazil against Costa Rica.

His efforts would have been captured in millions of images, not in the iconic yellow for which Brazil is famous, but in the garish bright blue that his team wore in that match.

Costa Rica also wore their "reserve" white kit in that game, which was a nonsense: it should have been yellow v red.

When Germany were knocked out by South Korea, ending their worst World Cup performance in 80 years, they slunk off the pitch not in their white shirts, which would have been appropriate, but in light green.

The list goes on and on. Cristiano Ronaldo playing in Portugal's second strip when there was no need, Nigeria using their supposedly brilliant (really?) new design only once, Russia ditching their red shirt for no good reason against Uruguay, who themselves wore white instead of light blue against Egypt.

In total, 14 first-round games featured one or both teams playing in the wrong colours when there was no need to change, and another four choices were questionable.

Thirty of the 32 teams wore their reserve kit in one or two games, at least 11 of them for no good reason.

None of the kit changes complied with FIFA's Equipment Regulations, which appear to be designed specifically for Nike and Adidas to shift more shirts.

The 32 teams had to submit to FIFA, on a "team colour form", two kit designs for approval, one broadly dark and the other broadly light.

All the first-choice kits were historic and traditional, the colours made famous by the finalists to a greater (Brazil) or lesser (Panama) extent over the years.

The relevant rules start with two words that provided the teams, and their shirt sponsors, with a massive get-out.

"In principle, each team shall wear its official team kit as declared on the team colour form," it reads. 

"If the two teams' colours might cause confusion, the host team (the team named first on the fixture list) shall be entitled to wear its official team kit and the visiting team shall use its reserve team kit or, if necessary, a combination of the official and the reserve team kits."

What on earth is the point of saying these rules are "in principle"?

The answer is obvious.

Official World Cup shirts for Nike's top two teams, Brazil and France, cost £99.95 ($132/€113), while you can snap up their Australia and Poland shirts for only £64.95 ($85/€73).

The Adidas roll-call includes Germany, Argentina, Spain and the admirably blue Japan, and their shirts cost £70 ($92/€80).

Yes, they put in a lot of money - Adidas' sponsorship of Germany runs to £58.5 million ($77 million/€66 million) a year, while Nike's long-term France deal has just gone up to £44.2 million ($58.3 million/€50 million) a year.

But why is advertising and promoting the shirts allowed at the World Cup?

FIFA's rules, which on equipment alone run to dozens of pages, forbid the "display of commercial messages" on the shirts.

What a joke. The shirts themselves are a commercial message, the players are shop-front dummies whose message is "come and buy me".

During the 1980s and 1990s, there were many truly horrendous kit designs in England, Germany, The Netherlands and elsewhere, shirts that seemed to favour a colour scheme based on porridge and ditchwater or, in the case of Norwich City in 1992, a violent vomit after a Thai meal. 

The designs are far better nowadays but there is no need, other than for the supposedly forbidden commercial reasons, to wear a second strip when the traditional, far more famous, proper kit does not clash with the opposition.

It is common knowledge that yellow is the "happiest" colour in psychological terms, that it is the colour of the most iconic shirt in the history of football, and that Brazil should have worn it against Costa Rica just as they did against Switzerland and Serbia, because all three of those teams wear red.

When Reuters asked FIFA why both teams were wearing reserve kits in the Brazil v Costa Rica game, a spokesman said the decision on kits was "based on a variety of factors, including potential colour clashes and requests from teams".

"It also takes into account the need to keep a certain balance by allowing the teams to use their home and away kits," he said.

Why?

I want to see Brazil playing in yellow, Germany in white, Argentina in their famous stripes, Croatia in those lovely red and white squares.

FIFA is forbidding and promoting commercialism at the same time, and it is clear on social media that I am not the only one who is getting shirty about their duplicity.