Leeds United unveil horrendous new badge

Claiming to have consulted with 10,000 people, none of whom have any recollection of it, Leeds United today unveiled the worst badge in the club’s near-100 year history.

Featuring a headless man doing a Leeds salute – because that’s obviously what you’d want in a badge, not say the Yorkshire rose or some reference to our centenary year – the badge has no redeeming features. The shape, the font, the terrible looking clipart man, I strongly suspect that plucking a random graphic design student from any sixth form college would result in a marked improvement. About the only thing the club got right were the colours.

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While I have no doubt the club took this process very seriously and that the redesign was an idea founded on the best of intentions, failure to include fans in the design and consultation process has resulted in a badge that looks like an appstore icon for a football management sim. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single fan in favour of this badge, which in itself is an achievement. I’m almost tempted to congratulate Radrizzani on successfully uniting the fanbase, so rarely is universal agreement an occurrence.

The claim of consulting 10,000 people appears to be based on a survey sent out last year, which gave no indication the club were looking to redesign the badge, Without the necessary context to inform their answers, Leeds fans may have unwittingly led the focus group down the path which resulted in the absolute monstrosity pictured above.

Obviously this badge can’t be allowed to don the famous white shirt of Leeds United Football Club and a petition is already gathering signatures in order to make Andrea Radrizzani have a rethink. But looking ahead to how such mistakes can be avoided, the Leeds United ownership must start consulting with fans before making a change which strikes at the very heart of the club’s identity.

Attempting to redesign a football club’s badge by consulting graphics and marketing professionals has been a disaster. The result is embarrassing. What’s worse is that the club has a wealth of free resources available to it – two supporters’ organisations, thousands of members and season ticket holders, with hundreds of thousands more fans reachable through the club website and social media. This could have been avoided.