New Zealand Super Rugby side the Canterbury Crusaders yesterday said that the team would retain their name, but change their logo after a review sparked by the deadly mosque shootings in its home city of Christchurch in March.
Critics said the name and branding referencing medieval wars between Christians and Muslims were inappropriate after the attacks, in which 51 Muslims died in the twin attacks.
Immediately after the killings, the Super Rugby giants stopped parading chain-mailed knights on horseback as pre-match entertainment at home games and indicated that the team logo of a sword-wielding crusader would be phased out.
However, there was resistance among fans to changing the name of arguably the world’s most successful rugby union club, with a record tally of 10 Super Rugby titles, three of them won in the past three years.
The club said the review concluded that the name would stay, but that it would adopt the meaning of crusading for good, rather than the war-like meaning of the term.
The new logo is a Maori tohu, or symbol, resembling a stylised letter “C” in the club colors of red and black.
“Ultimately, it was decided that no name better represented the club’s commitment to living its values — crusading for social improvement and inclusiveness, and crusading with heart for our community and for each other — than Crusaders,” chief executive Colin Mansbridge said.
The club would begin using the new logo immediately, but it will not make an on-field debut until 2021, with next year’s kits simply carrying the Crusaders’ name.
The new logo with the Crusaders name was published earlier yesterday on New Zealand’s Intellectual Property Office Web site.
Mansbridge said the new logo represented the entire region and not just Christchurch, and reflected the Maori heritage of the South Island.
“We believe that the logo we have launched today is a much more fitting representation of this team, organization and its supporters,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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