By Mark Baber
August 12 – The announcement that Hull City AFC will be renamed Hull City Tigers has been met with some hostility from fans of the Yorkshire club, despite club owner Assem Allam touting the benefits of marketing the club as Hull City Tigers locally and Hull Tigers to national and international audiences.
Opposition from some fans to the removal of “Association Football Club” from the club’s name, which has been a part of the identity of the club since its formation in 1904, has coalesced around a petition signed by over 1,500 supporters and been exacerbated by what some see as a lack of consultation.
The petition complains of “a disgraceful move that has garnered ridicule and disapproval from all sectors of the footballing world” and talks about the owner, who has since taking over in December 2010 has been the major force behind the recent success of the club and its promotion to the Premier League, “spitting in the face of the community.”
Assem Allam explained his reasoning for the name change to the Hull Daily Mail: “I have always used short names in business. It gives you power in the science in marketing: the shorter, the more powerful the message. In ‘Tigers’ we have a really strong brand.”
Furthermore, Allam has argued that, “AFC is redundant, it is not used by the club. The fans never mention AFC, nor do the media.”
After the furore caused by the announcement, the club issued a clarification that: “The business name at Companies House had its ‘Association Football Club’ suffix removed in the spring of this year, leaving the club to be named ‘Hull City Tigers Ltd’.
“This will now be used in official club statements, regarding any of our commercial operations.
“The Tigers brand, with its powerful imagery, will be used in international markets to attract new interest and attention in both Hull and the East Riding from a worldwide audience.”
For their part, local media have said they will continue to call the club ‘Hull City’. The Premier League have issued a statement saying, “They will still be known as Hull City as far as the Premier League is concerned when results or fixtures are published. We understand the move is more to do with their international reputation.
“If any club wanted to change the club name we would talk to them and see what processes of consultation [with supporters] they had gone through.”
Meanwhile Bernard Noble of the Hull City Official Supporters’ Club told BBC Radio 5 live: “My personal opinion is I’m disappointed because I’m a bit of a traditionalist.”
Summing up the mixed feelings of most supporters he continued: “But this guy saved us from liquidation and administration and it’s his club. I will still say ‘I’m going to watch City’, ‘I’m going to watch the Tigers’, ‘I’m going to watch Hull’. I will still say that and so will many other people.”
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