Manchester United, the world’s most popular football club, and some studies say is the world’s most popular sports franchise, issued an apology after a weekly fan mass mailing included a Swastika-style team logo and a phrase linked to Nazism.
In addition to the image, that bears a remarkable similarity to the logo of the German Nazi Party, the “United Uncovered” email carries the headline “New Order” – a term linked to Nazism after Adolf Hitler’s 1941 call for a European New Order – above images of key players Adnan Januzaj, David de Gea and Danny Welbeck.
The image immediately caused widespread outrage on Twitter and forced Manchester United – who play in the British Premier League—to issue the apology via their Head of Media, David Sternberg.
Sternberg tweeted “The creative is completely inappropriate; we apologise unreservedly and are taking appropriate internal action.”
The UK Daily Telegraph reports that the soccer giants have taken action to prevent further distribution of the United Uncovered email, with senior figures expressing shock at the incident.
So here is that image Manchester United utilized, and have made considerable efforts to minimize the fallout, through extensive damage control:
It’s been a rough year for Manchester United, the English Premier League defending champions. The Manager transition, after 26 years, from Sir Alex Ferguson to David Moyes has been anything but smooth. There have tremendous issues at midfield, a very rough start to the season, the Manchester Derby disaster, the lack of notable moves at the transfer window and the Wayne Rooney soap opera among others.
And of course, now this.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a regular analyst on news talk radio stations across the world; with weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS