The West Ham board propose to change their traditional club crest of crossed hammers and castle and include the world ‘London’ in the name, to give the West Ham brand a more global appeal.
The club’s vision is to build a stronger presence and raise their status as a top London side so people will speak about West Ham in the same breath as Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham.
Chairman David Sullivan believes that the rebrand project will massively benefit the club commercially but has pledged to initiate the process only on the say so of the fans.
Despite the board’s best intentions, many of the Hammers supporters are disgusted by the proposal and view the impending changes as an insult to the heritage and traditions of their club.
The die-hards are also adamant that the board will go ahead and make the updates to the crest, regardless of their wishes.
A source close to Upton Park informed Football Express News that the board are going about their business in a way that suggests they have lost sight of what is important to their loyal supporters.
He said opting to place a bigger emphasis on revenue and profits rather than maintaining the identity fans have grown so passionate about over the decades, is not the way to win hearts.
“They’re trying to change our badge, to rebrand the traditional West Ham image of the crossed hammers with the castle in the background” the insider told FEN.
“They want to take the castle out and put the word ‘London’ in it, so it says ‘West Ham United London.’
“A lot of the traditionalists simply don’t want their badge changed as it’s the badge we grew up with and the crossed hammers and castle mean a lot to us, as does the name West Ham United. It is part of our roots as fans.”
He explained how the survey on West Ham’s official website, in which the board sought feedback from Hammers followers on their rebrand proposal, ended up serving no purpose other than getting their backs up.
“They put a survey on the club website with questions that were all quite ambiguous. Many were silly like ‘how much would you mind if the badge was altered,’ and there wasn’t an option on the survey to say ‘no, I don’t want it’ and refuse point blank.
“It’s gone down like a lead balloon with a large majority of the match-going supporters and triggered a lot of animosity towards the board.
“The club have since published something on the website saying the majority of fans had agreed to the proposal, which I know for a fact is complete rubbish.
“The whole idea of putting the word ‘London’ in it is to appeal to the foreigners and the bottom line is, they want to make as much money as possible.
“They expect to up the sale of merchandise as all the new kits will have to be produced with the new badge on.
“I can’t see it is really going to work in the club’s favour at all as everyone I know who supports West Ham are very unhappy and angry about it,” he concluded.