SLAMMED UNITED
Leeds forced to revisit new badge as 60,000 fans protest at ‘awful’ and ‘shocking’ design
OUTRAGED Leeds United fans have branded the club’s new crest a badge too far.
The backlash was so fierce that a petition calling on Leeds to bin the motif, to mark the club’s centenary in 2019, collected more than 60,000 signatures within hours of it being revealed.
Stunned by the hostile response, Leeds last night agreed to think again
and “revisit” the controversial design.
Many fans claimed the new design bore a striking resemblance to the label on indigestion medication Gaviscon.
BBC Match of the Day host Gary Lineker tweeted a picture of the badge and said: “Gives me heartburn just looking at it.”
England cricketer Jonny Bairstow, a lifelong fan, blasted the new insignia “absolutely shocking.”
And Championship rivals Aston Villa rinsed Leeds on social media, playfully marketing their promotion clash in April as “West Midlands Village vs Yorkshire Whites” – with Villa’s famous lion badge replaced by a pair of prancing unicorns.
The Elland Road club claim more than 10,000 fans were consulted during the six-month process of designing the new crest, which depicts the so-called ‘Leeds salute’.
But search parties have struggled to locate any of the 10,000 supporters whose opinions were canvassed, and Leeds fanzine Square Ball tweeted: “A big, glossy exercise in branding done by a consultant in Shoreditch. We need to go for a soya milk latte and a lie down.”
And the mainstream Leeds United Supporters Trust insist they were not consulted – and their first sight of the new badge was on Tuesday evening, hours before its glossy launch.
Richard Burgon, MP for East Leeds and a lifelong fan of the club, wrote a letter to owner Andrea Radrizzani pleading: “Please listen to the fans on this and scrap this badge. Leeds United – and the fans – deserve better than this.”
Initially, Leeds managing director Angus Kinnear backed the new design.
But he later conceded: “We knew it was going to be controversial, but given the weight and volume of the comments, the only right thing to do is to re-engage, and we’re going to do that.”