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LEAKED: New Aston Villa crest emerges with fans divided on whether they like it or not

The new Aston Villa crest emerges having been leaked on social media earlier this week with fans divided on whether they like it or not.

A crest which was registered by Aston Villa as a trademark with the UK government in December 2023 has now been posted online.

It’s believed this new crest will be officially unveiled by the Premier League club very soon not only as it is officially on the trademark website but it had also been shown at a recent meeting of the club’s fan advisory board (FAB).

This badge has a shield like shape with a bright yellow lion on a light blue background, pretty similar to the current badge.

On this one, there is a shadow coming out from behind the lion, and beneath it, ‘1874’ in white is placed with the name ‘Aston Villa’ below it in claret. Claret and white borders the shield.

The new shield design will replace the current crest and the scrapped round badge, with the latter only being used on playing kits and training wear for the 2023/24 campaign.

The 1982 inspired design had been chosen following a survey/vote which over 21,000 fans took part in back in November 2022.

However, with Chris Heck being appointment as the club’s president of business operations, the round badge was then trialled out by the newly appointed chief.

He decided it was not suitable in the long-term and decided to to do another new crest process, with the chosen design to be used from the start of the 2024/25 season and was picked after 16,000 supporters responded to an online survey.

Regulations which had been brought in last year to protect heritage require clubs to undertake a “thorough and extensive consultation process”, but Villa’s FAB don’t believe that was sufficient under those rules.

Members of the FAB have subsequently got in touch with the FA to outline their concerns that the club have not engaged in sufficient consultation, despite the club arguing the contrary.

NOTES FROM THE FAN ADVISORY BOARD (FAB) REGARDING THE CLUB CREST (DEC 2023)

“The club confirmed the recently released AV 150 mark is not the new crest and will be used as a mark to help celebrate our 150th year. For example, it is likely to appear on the back of our shirts next season.

“The club outlined to the group thoughts on the previous consultation that resulted in the round crest, reasons why it was felt that a change was needed and confirmed results from the fans survey which have played a major role in creating our new crest.

“A video was shown to the group which outlined the results of this process and introduced the new crest. Discussion was held around the consultative process, and the club confirmed that the FA have been consulted throughout.

“The video highlighted that the Club had 16,000 responses to the 85,000 survey mailings with the suggested crest being designed as a result of those responses.

“81% of respondents wanted the name of the Club in the crest whilst 85% wanted the European Cup commemorative star incorporated. The majority of respondents felt that the shield shape was preferable and within that, the left-facing lion rampant completed the responses.

“The Club presented a draft crest for discussion and whilst not universally popular neither was it universally unpopular. There were no suggested changes.

“Having now completed the detailed consultation process, the Club will look to announce the new crest approximately two weeks from the meeting, and the crest will then be rolled out across the summer.”

FAB reply: “Considering the FA’s new rules on fan consultation to protect the club’s heritage assets like badges, we were not happy with the approach taken by those at the club pushing for the badge to be changed again.

“At the meeting (and in previous recent meetings), Chris Heck and Ben Hatton, at no stage asked for any suggested changes on the crest from the FAB. They didn’t even ask, if group members liked it.

“In fact, in previous meetings, it had been stated that no feedback would change the badge that is presented, as it would be ‘left to the professionals’.

“This contradicts the statement made in the recent Chris Heck interview that the badge is now with fans for feedback before its unveiling. The FAB is not aware of this happening and stated this in the meeting.

“The FAB voiced its concern with the consultation on the badge, stating it specifically was not as extensive as for the previous new badge. The club identified that it has already spoken to the FA about the compliance of the consultation, as a precursor to showing the badge to the FAB.

“The FAB voiced it’s concern on the shape of the badge not being right for Villa. In essence, it’s an update on the current yellow lion shield. In the first survey for the badge, supporters clearly stated they were not happy with it, to quote the club, ‘given that only 19% of fans who filled out the survey claimed to like the current shield shape’.

“Also, a move from a yellow lion to a claret one was stressed throughout the badge consultation process and embraced by the club.

“In a vote of 21,500 supporters, only 8% of fans voted to keep this shield badge.

“Regardless of views on the current round badge on the shirts, it has a clear mandate from Aston Villa supporters with 77% of the vote for the club.

“In that respect, the bare minimum of supporter consultation required to give any new badge a similar mandate would be for it to face and top the round badge in a renewed supporter vote.

“It is not satisfactory for executives who have been at the club for a matter of months, to create a badge that ‘they believe’ is what the majority of fans want, without getting supporter approval first, as per the new FA rules.

“The round badge this season also has the potential of being associated with a huge upturn in success for the club, unmatched by the period experienced by the previous variations of the recent yellow lion shield design.

“The initial mission of the club changing the club badge was to signal a new future for the club and to break away from recent serial underachievement”.

The new Aston Villa crest emerges with fans divided on whether they like it or not…

@avfcdave1990: Shite! Stick with the circular one. Much better

@GeekyGonzo: Round one is perfect, a new one wasn’t needed

@The_Willster62: It’s got the right colours and a lion with a star. It will do 😀

@christhevillan: The badge we have now is ten times better than that thing.

@ludders1967: Ticks the boxes 👍

@MatthewCreatur: I actually love it

@jtccolclough: Keep the round badge, its lucky

@NHSHuw: I hate drop shadows, but otherwise I quite like it

@ryanthecreatr: Be keen to see the reason in changing crests, what will be 5 times since 2007? Colour changes, taglines removed and lions flipped, very strange from quite a prestigious club.

@dwichmann1981: Looks like the old badge, quite like all of them, not really bothered though, it’s just a badge until it’s not.

@hutchavfc: I Like it. It has all the components that everyone wanted. You’ll always have someone disliking and moaning about it. No one is forcing anyone to purchase gear with it on.

@reel_villan: I was hoping for something nice. It will grow on us, as any badge does. However, it is so basic and is worse than the current round badge. They have basically thrown away what the supporters wanted and gone for a very simplistic take on a shield design.

@lew_clamp: Aston Villa’s gotta be at the top surely

@VillaTruth1: It’s fucking shit

@UpTheVilla_AVFC: Let’s be honest. Heck has been paid millions to take ‘AVFC’ off the old badge and come up with the brilliant idea of writing ‘Aston Villa’ at the bottom, may as well add a little border so it stands out a little 😂😂😆 Couldn’t make it up mate. Stealing a living!!

@GazFitzpatrick: It looks like one of those games that removes the words and you have to guess the logo

@ChrisCJTucker: Shocking lack of claret

@DanMatthewsAV: Genuinely don’t mind it, Villa fans love a meltdown though. It’s nothing better or worse than the round crest though either.

@no1villian: Don’t mind it. The acid test will be what it looks like on a shirt

@tom_delaney90: I’m not a massive fan of it… prefer the lantern crest

@mclarkyboy: I don’t like it at all!

@Brummiecyp: If someone can get a wage for coming up with dross like that then I’m clearly in the wrong job. Personally I think the gas lamp design should be top of the list if the round badge is to go.

@JoshColebatch: Not liking it at all, not yet anyway. As if a team of graphic designers etc have come up with that though.

@matty__jeff: I like it, and can easily get used to placement of the name

@wozwebs: Looks like Heck didn’t like the round one we all voted for and has come up with this Microsoft Paint monstrosity. Drop shadow childish and yellow lion dreadful

@DenverDave30: This is what happens when you design a new badge on Microsoft Paint

@DeanoM359: Incipid, boring, generic, computer design. Not for me either. I don’t see why this can be a marketeers dream compared to the current round badge or the previous crest?

@LionsMilitary:
1. Too similar the existing badge. Why bother.
2. The result of the first fan vote was 80%+ in favour of a return to a round badge, don’t believe this has significantly enough to go back to a shield.
3. Not enough claret (change colour of the Lion)
4. Looks cheap.

@Dave_evad11:
It’s rank
Randy learner vibes.
Fans consulted and voted for a round badge.
Just needs some tweaks but the one we have is a million times better.
Plus our most successful era… old and new…round badge.
What’s not to love.

@villaleebs: Meh. A reinvention was needed, which is what the round badge is since it’s a total breakaway from the Lerner era. This new one is reverting back to a time of a false dawns. Keep the round badge or alter it only very slightly.

@BalmforthAndy: Current round badge is far better than this, sadly however, Heck appears to disregard the fans opinions, as shown by the latest from @Villa_Trust

@dinogeo6: It’s fine, but some of the fan made ones are better. I like the border, and I like the lion facing the right way. I like Aston Villa not AVFC. I like the star and date. I don’t like the Aston Villa on the bottom, would have looked better on top.

@tonysymonds: Been looking at it for hours. Yellow should be an accent colour, not the main centrepiece. Or at least use a more classy gold. Would love to see more claret and change the balance so ‘Aston Villa’ is at the top. #AVFC

@TheVillanAVFC:
– The crest shape is really weak
– The double outline is a civil offence
– The drop shadow lion is a criminal offence
– No balance and terrible use of negative space
– 1874 looks like it’s an afterthought
– Aston Villa font is not great, don’t get me started on the skew
1/10

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