Beyond the badge: visual reembedding and the politics of football crest design

This paper examines recent reversals in football crest design by AFC Ajax and AS Roma, positioning them not as nostalgic retreats but as strategic acts of visual reembedding. These decisions — to reinstate heritage crests rich in figuration and historical reference, contrast sharply with the 2017 Juventus rebrand, which replaced a symbolically dense badge with a minimalist “J” monogram optimised for digital and commercial scalability. Drawing on branding theory, social semiotics, and political economy, the paper argues that while abstraction can enhance legibility and reach, it may also weaken a crest’s symbolic resonance, loosening ties to local memory and increasing reliance on narrative support to sustain meaning. Although no fan responses explicitly framed these design reversals as critiques of commercialisation or globalisation, public commentary on forums and news platforms frequently interpreted them as symbolic restorations of identity and tradition. The paper does not treat these interpretations as evidence of resistance, but as signs of how visual form becomes a site for affective negotiation between fans and institutions. Through comparative analysis, the paper contends that crest design has become a key arena in the visual politics of football, where clubs acknowledge discontent not through structural reform, but through symbolic concession. In this sense, heritage design functions as a form of institutional stabilisation: a way to restore visual legitimacy while preserving the underlying commercial logic of elite football.