J.League officials defended the decision, saying the five colors account for 91 percent of all colors used by all clubs in the past three years. Some teams have developed well-coordinated marketing plans by making original fonts and typography part of the identity of the club and its fan base.īut from the next season, all teams, from the J1 top division through J3, will be required to use a font created by a northern European company in official matches, except certain championship games. “Team color is really about a combination of the jersey’s colors and fonts.”Ĭurrently, each club has chosen its own fonts and colors for the uniforms. “The options are too few, don’t you think?” another dissenting fan posted on the website. The league also said that teams can use only five colors for the names and numbers on jerseys-white, blue, red, black and yellow. “Keep your noses out of each team’s identity,” an unhappy fan wrote on the league’s official website.
Many fans, however, are turned off by the move. The idea is to make players more identifiable for viewers watching games on the small screens of smartphones and tablet computers. The professional football league in mid-September announced plans to standardize the typography for players’ names and numbers on their jerseys from next season. A uniform decision by the J.League has created a sort of identity crisis among soccer fans around Japan.
