By Andrew Warshaw
April 10- The symbolic Hull City name change saga that has generated interest way beyond English shores has taken yet another turn — just days before one of the biggest games in the club’s history.
Earlier this week a small group of season ticket holders voted in favour of supporting a move by owner Assem Allam to change the club’s name despite a relentless campaign by grassroots fans who opposed the idea.
Egyptian-born Allam, who moved to Hull in 1968 and whose family has pumped more than £70 million into the club and is credited with rescuing it from administration, threatened to quit unless his plans are approved.
Assam wants to rename the club, who play in amber and black and have exceeded expectations this season by climbing to a respectable position after gaining promotion and reaching the semifinals of the FA Cup this weekend, Hull Tigers, dropping the word ‘City’ after 109 years, in order to make it easier to market Hull around the world and give it wider appeal.
Hull City season card holders narrowly voted in favour of Allam’s plan, with 2,565 voting for the change and 2,517 against. But now the Football Association’s Council has turned down the proposals, prompting delight among the fans’ group City Till We Die which had already branded partial support for Allam’s plan as “largely meaningless” since of the club’s 15,033 season card holders, only 5,874 had voted.
But Allam is not finished yet, saying he will appeal against the decision.
“If it had been the other way round, if the FA had approved it but the fans had said no, I would have severed my ties with the club immediately,” Allam, who took charge of the club in in December 2010, told BBC Sport.
“But the results mean I owe it to the silent majority to appeal and to fight on. For now what is important is what happens on the field. We want to finish as high as we possibly can in the league, and the FA Cup gives us the possibility of getting into Europe.”
Any appeal would likely have to go through the Court for Arbitration for Sport and the City Till We Die group said in a statement: “We are very pleased that the FA has recognised the importance of the historic name of Hull City AFC to the fans and the wider community of Hull. This is truly a victory for the fans.”