Nice job, Birmingham Mail!
A day after we got told Aston Villa were "spending £2 million to drop ‘prepared’ from the crest" or whatever, well, the club have informed us that’s far from the case.
The whole project has cost less than £80,000 — not the £2m quoted in press reports this week.
Oh.
The £2 million figure always seemed a little ludicrous but, you know, the whole point of the press is to report the truth and things, so…
This is a pretty miserable piece of "journalism" out of the Birmingham Mail though, and they should be called out for it. Not only is there a huge difference between £80,000 and £2 million, but you’re also dealing with a fanbase that’s on edge right now, willing and ready to go off at a moment’s notice. Reckless reporting like the one we got from the Mail yesterday is irresponsible and, quite frankly, unacceptable.
Back to the crest thing, though, which may or may not have "leaked" on the EU’s trademark website.
The club go on to say some pretty standard stuff about improving branding in the "digital age" and other standard things often discussed when tweaks to branding are performed.
But then there’s this quote, which really strikes me as odd:
However, we will not be spending significant sums on changing the branding in the ground this summer.
I don’t get what this is supposed to mean. Does it mean that changing the branding in the ground isn’t going to cost a significant amount of money? Or does it mean that they’re just not changing the branding in the ground?
If it’s the latter — and I think it is — that’s a really, really weird, half-assed thing to be doing. There’s a reason Villa have put money into this, at least in their eyes, and to not fully commit to doing it makes little to no sense at all. I’ve been to Villa Park twice, so I don’t know the extent to which the current crest features at the ground, but this is odd.
Though the updated price tag explains the minor tweaks to the crest a lot better, it’s still interesting the club didn’t fix some of the bigger flaws of the original and/or make a move to something that’s, you know, noticeably different — both to usher in a new era and drive merchandise sales