Hull Show How to Run a Proper Football Club

By: Matt | February 13th, 2009

Round One to EPL Lawyers

As many of you Offside readers will be aware, we were recently sent some wonderful feedback by the English Premier League’s legal team, that said in so many words: ‘Stop using EPL crests (or any UK crests for that matter) on your website, OR ELSE.’ I’m pretty sure there is a lightning strike and terrifying music playing each time the ‘or else’ bit is read. So anyways, this is what accounts for the crests being replaced by the awkward little colored silhouette men on the main site, and above this post, if you were wondering.

Tigers Show Some Class

So I my good friends, decided that this just wasn’t on, and contacted the Hull City Marketing Department, basically explaining the situation, and requesting that I be able to continue to use the beloved crest on my site.

Lo and behold, the wonderful people at Hull responded almost immediately to my query. I won’t publish the whole letter, but here is the good bit:

“Matt – many thanks for your letter outlining the issues regarding the use of our official club crest.

Please accept this email as permission to use our crest within the context of future newstories, articles and match reports that will appear on your site www.theoffside.com”

They also went on to let me know that while I can gladly use the crest for display, for legal reasons I cannot use it to promote the site in anyway, which is perfectly fine by me. And then came the real kicker: they would like to collaborate with the Offside (the actual club, Hull City AFC would like to work with US) moving forward, by supplying exclusive interviews and features from the Tigers official CITY magazine.

So just to reiterate, 1) Not only do Hull City promptly reply to questions/feedback, 2) They are also more than happy to allow the use of the club crest on the site (outside of the external promotion bit, which I don’t use the crest for anyway), and finally, 3) They would like to work hand in hand with the Offside in the future by supplying us exclusive content to publish on the site.

Thank You Hull City

So fine readers, in closing, the next time someone you’re chatting with starts railing against the cash hungry powers that be in the world of football, just remember, there is one club out there that does what it was formed to do: play football, and look after its most important resource: its supporters.

Hull City AFC ladies and gentlemen.