An Adelaide construction business has not ruled out taking legal action against the Australian Premier Leagues due to a potential breach of trademark and copyright after the A-League was rebranded using an almost identical logo.
The governing body of the A-League launched a rebranding of all professional football competitions on Wednesday highlighted by including the mens and women’s competition under the “A-Leagues” umbrella and abandoning the use of W-League as a standalone title. However, it was a clash of images that set social media alight just hours after the release with the new logo — a circle and back-slash forming a stylised letter A — appearing to be an exact copy of the logo for Adelaide Building Consulting.
The company’s managing director, Timothy Rogers, was inundated with calls, messages and emails about the use of his company’s logo, including from “four or five” lawyers offering their services for a potential dispute.
Adelaide Building Consulting underwent a rebranding more than 12 months ago and are unwilling to change their logo to avoid a clash with that of the A-Leagues. Rogers says a decision on their next course of action is yet to be made but has not ruled out a legal dispute with the Australian Professional Leagues over a perceived copyright infringement.
“It’s a bit funny, it’s an odd situation. As for our position, we aren’t sure what we are going to take,” Rogers said. “I would assume we would have some dialogue with the A-League to see what their position is.”
The A-League’s new logo launch created a stir of interest in the medium-sized construction company in South Australia but Adelaide Building Consulting doesn’t want the possible misconception that they adopted the A-League’s new image. Rogers hadn’t received any correspondence from the APL as of Thursday morning and is keeping his options open.
“We have to look at our position because we don’t want people to think we followed them. We don’t want that repercussion,” Rogers said. “It’s quite bizarre. We have to consider where this leaves us. We don’t want to change our logo because people recognise our logo before it was theirs. We don’t want to change it because of them. In terms of logos, it’s identical. It’s essentially the same.”
The company’s logo was designed by its internal marketing team more than a year ago. Rogers confesses he has little interest in sport and was only made aware about the A-League’s new logo when clients sent it to him on Wednesday.