Request Submitted

By: Ian Rose | April 7th, 2009

In the latest chapter of The Offside’s ongoing battle against the British legal system, here is my request for use of the Caley Thistle crest:

ICT Front Office,

My name is Ian Rose, and I’m a Caley Thistle fan living in the United States. My family is from the Inverness area, and I’ve been following the team since the merger. I had the pleasure of seeing the team play last year in Inverness for the first time (beats poor internet video every day of the week). I wanted to bring an issue to the club’s attention about a legal matter, and hopefully resolve it. I write a blog on the popular football website The Offside (http://www.theoffside.com) about Caley Thistle. The blog can be found at http://caley.theoffside.com . Though I don’t always agree with every decision the club and management makes, like any fan, I believe the blog generally helps to spread the word about the club. We have previously used club crests as a part of the identifying logo at the top of the screen, but we receieved a cease-and-desist order from a law office in Britain claiming to represent all clubs in the Premier League, SPL, SFL, and English football league. The order asked that we remove all team crests from those leagues, even partial images, until special permission was granted from individual clubs. That is what I am asking for in this email.

We’ve had mixed response to this from other clubs. So far, the only English club to grant us specific permission has been Hull City (http://hull.theoffside.com). When they agreed, our thousands of readers were unanimously in support of the decision, some both in Britain and the United States saying that they would be more likely to support Hull because of the decision. It was seen as a club choosing to work with fans rather than against them. You can read some of the comments here – http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/premier-league-crests-hull-city-are-king.html . Since its posting, that article has recieved over 2,000 visitors, not to mention the over 4,000 readers that came and saw it on our front page that day. The Hull City blog has since this decision more than doubled in traffic, mostly American and foreign fans who previously didn’t support a particular Premier League team. It was a fantastic gesture of goodwill towards the fans.

The crest is the club’s property, and it’s your decision what to do with it. But as a fan who wears his Caley shirt every Saturday, and his Caley scarf on his way to work (unless Scotland is playing that day, in which case I can’t very well wear two scarves …), I feel like the fans have some ownership in the crest as well. It’s a symbol that means a lot to us, and it would mean the world to us if we could have permission to use it again.

For an example of how the crest is used in logos, take a look at our Barcelona blog – http://barcelona.theoffside.com . The logo is on the top left. The crest is shown only partially, but is clearly recognizable.

Thank you for your time, and good luck (to all of us) in securing SPL play for next season. Mon the Caley.

Ian

Let’s hope Caley joins the Hull side of the argument, rather than the Wolves one.