Linford Christie leaks photo of Arsenal’s new Puma kit

It was supposed to be top secret, but Linford Christie may have accidentally tweeted a picture of one of the most eagerly anticipated product launches in football: Arsenal’s new Puma kit.

From next season, the Gunners will change kit suppliers from Nike to Puma in what has been reported as the most lucrative kit contract in British sporting history.

The release of any new football kit garners almost unreasonable amounts of anticipation and excitement from fans, and this will only have been heightened with a new kit from a new supplier for a top team on the horizon.

New kits can often lead to spurious "leaks" of proposed kits that a 'mate of a mate' sent to a mate which often turn out to be exactly that: absolutely spurious.

However, social media has reduced some of the ambiguity in these instances. Once something of interest is posted then it can – and often does - go viral. Just ask Ryan Giggs.

So when former Olympic 100m champion (and Puma ambassador) Christie tweeted a picture of himself, Bacary Sagna, Olivier Giroud and Arsenal legend Thierry Henry sporting a Puma-branded Arsenal kit, Twitter went into overdrive.

Christie has been one of the biggest names on Pumas's books for years, and once even risked the ire of the IOC by wearing some frankly terrifying Puma-branded contact lenses at a press conference during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

With that in mind it's no surprise that the 53-year-old kept his paymasters happy by quickly deleting the offending tweet and picture - but thanks to the magic of the screen grab and the beauty of the glorious retweet it will be out there on the interweb for ever more.

What do you make of the kit? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section...