Recently, Atlético de Madrid announced the return of its old shield after a change made in the 2017/18 season. In 2023, a vote among fan members, which saw the participation of 56% of members, ended with 88% of voters in favor of the new change.
With this, the Spanish club joins Real Valladolid and Aston Villa on the list of teams that changed their shields and, after a short period of time and criticism from fans, decided to return to the old version. This could mean a new trend in world football, right after the wave of club rebranding, which occurred mainly in the last decade.
For Fábio Wolff, marketing specialist and managing partner of Wolff Sports, the symbol of a team is the maximum representation of an institution, which makes the fan identify with and feel like they belong to the club. Therefore, it is something sacred within the mythology of football.
“The symbol of a club is not something easy to change in football. Atlético de Madrid had had the same badge since 1947, when they decided, 70 years later, to make the change. For seven decades, therefore, generations of fans, who were accustomed to a certain badge, were unable to adapt to the new feature. This just shows how different this sport is from anything else. Passion guides fans and directly impacts their engagement with the team. Therefore, it is a characteristic that teams should always pay attention to”, comments the executive.
From Child to Legend.
Fernando @Torres ❤️🤍 pic.twitter.com/hFGcxa3yR1
— Atlético de Madrid (@Atleti) June 3, 2024
In the case of Real Valladolid and Aston Villa, the return to the old symbol was even faster. Both clubs announced in 2022 that they would make changes to their badges and, after one season, decided to reverse their decision, resuming the previous badge. The Spanish club went through a vote similar to that of Atlético de Madrid, in which 88.15% of members opted to return the previous coat of arms.
Fernando Kleimmann, managing partner of Volt Sport, a supplier of sporting equipment that serves 10 teams in all divisions of the country, believes that a team’s symbol is one of the main points of a uniform and, therefore, regardless of the model or shirt design, must identify with the club.
“The symbol of a club is its identity. Therefore, it is not so simple to make any type of change. There are cases that worked and examples that didn’t work, as we can see in the last decade. I believe that the ideal is to always maintain the fan’s sense of belonging. This is the maxim we follow when producing our uniforms, always highlighting the meaning that the institution has for the fans”, highlights Kleimmann.
Contrary to cases in which the change of symbol did not work, Cuiabá, a club founded in 2001, underwent a change in its shield in 2010. The idea was to deliver a new identity to the club, more modern, but respecting the colors and traditional symbols of the institution, in addition to adding the year the team was founded on the badge. The fans embraced the redesign and the coat of arms is still used today.
“We prioritized keeping the name of the club, the date of foundation and the Geodesic Landmark of South America, which is in Cuiabá, on the new shield. It was another way to modernize and update the shield more within what Brazilian football required at the time. The change was highly praised, people, in general, really liked it. In my opinion, we had a great choice”, points out the President of Cuiabá, Cristiano Dresch.
Source: Gazetaesportiva
Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
