The Italian football team that was regrettably demoted from Serie A last season, Spezia Calcio, has been entangled in an unfolding row. The club disclosed its fresh branding to fortify its bond with the local community and emphasize its core principles. However, the unveiling stirred a hornet’s nest rather than achieving the desired accolades, provoking widespread outrage from ardent supporters and residents.
The epicenter of the indignation revolves around perceived similarities between the freshly minted logo and icons commonly linked to Nazism and additional radical right-wing ideologies. These perceived associations have unleashed a wave of disapproval across the club’s official website and its sundry digital social channels.
A petition, hosted on Change.org, has been initiated by the club’s fervent supporters in protest of the new symbol. The argument put forth suggests that the revised symbol neglects the historical legacy of Spezia Calcio. The petitioners insist on returning to the previous logo, fueling the tension around the contentious design.
The Spezia 23-24 logo under debate displays a minimalist design, incorporating three main features: the name of the club ‘Spezia’ positioned at the crest, an iconic eagle symbol emblazoned in the middle, and at the base, an intertwining of the letters S and C forming an anchor. This last element, particularly, has been construed by some as harboring fascist connotations.
Given the sheer scale of the backlash, it is still being determined whether Spezia will persist with their newly revealed logo or retract it and revert to their former design.
Spezia’s past is punctuated with instances of political strife. In Mussolini’s reign, Spezia, with its extensive military infrastructure, was a significant target of Allied bombardment, aiming to disrupt the fascist troops and their Nazi counterparts. The club’s fraught history might elucidate why its new logo’s alleged ties to far-right extremism have sparked such a public furor.
Historically, Spezia’s crest has often displayed a monogram of the club’s initials, occasionally accompanied by an eagle.
Today, the club is entrenched in a high-profile dispute over its recent logo. Whether they will stand by their innovative design or revert to a previous version is a mystery yet to unravel.
