When Celtic “renewed” the “Old Firm” trademark not that long ago, the question was put to our board as to why we had bothered. The answer fans got back was that it was being re-registered so that it could never be used.
The logic was that Celtic was making sure we held the rights to it so that the phrase would never be monetised against us.
Most of us accepted that explanation; it sounded procedurally and legally correct after all. But as an explanation, it is only as good as our willingness to enforce our rights.
The suspicion remained that our club was engaged in a piece of sophistry.
With the way the Gutter Ball has been announced, and the way the club has sought to dress up a scandalous violation of trust by hiding behind the manager, nobody with a functioning brain cell really believes that the club isn’t hanging onto that trademark in order to exploit it for profit one day.
Recent events have seemed to prove that theory correct.
Because if we own the trademark with the explicit purpose of preventing its monetisation, how can the organisers of the “Sydney Super Cup” be advertising the Gutter Ball as an “Old Firm” game?
How can they be using the very slogan for the very purpose that we took out the trademark to prevent in the first place? How else without our approval?
How else than with with our connivance?
I can’t put this any other way than to just come right out and say it. Unless we get clarity on this, and unless those words are removed from the promotional material, Celtic has resurrected the Old Firm brand and is using it for marketing purposes.
If our club has allowed this, then our club has lied to us and as I predicted earlier in the month, our club does not intend this game to be a “one-off.”
At a time when the club at Ibrox has become ever more toxic and vile, and a time when they are fraudulently claiming 150 years of history even as our club obliquely hints otherwise, our directors have bought into the Survival Lie whole.
If we’re promoting this as an “Old Firm game” – and I make no distinction between actively doing so and allowing others to do so because there is none – then the people running Celtic are a shady, dishonest bunch of charlatans who view us with utter contempt.
I cannot put it more simply and bluntly than that.
In allowing the promotion of this as an “Old Firm” fixture they are not only endorsing the structure of lies on which the current Ibrox operation is built, but they are ignoring the wishes of an entire support that wants nothing to do with the so-called rivalry, going back over 20 years.
And that’s a bigger issue than just one game.
This issue has to be tackled with SKY sports who continues to use the brand for promotional purposes still.
Get sky sports out of Celtic Park would be the easiest way to kill that brand that’s been dead for 10 years now.
Guess that Nicholson has joined the blazers in the Hampden bunker?
More chance of sighting Lord Lucan.
And the customers are always right, apparently. 🙁
Celtic needs to publicly announce that Rangers died and therefore can not play us in a friendly in Australia. They have to announce that Sevco are merely a tribute act with a short history and one trophy (gained under very unusual circumstances) to their name. There is no Old Firm, there is no 150 years and there is no 55 titles. Celtic fans must say no to playing these tramps down under.
My God there are none that are so blind as to those who cannot see.
Get a grip you better believe it is the old firm one hand washes the other when it comes to money with both clubs.
King the CHISLER is perfect for this as is Parks and The Dalton Gang that run Celtic.
Everyone knows the truth some try to counter-argue the facts, there is no legal argument and the company that was rangers, not the holding company were liquidated. Deid.!!
The use of a phrase, I care not a jot tbh. The Celtic family have a lot to be proud of. Rangers and their fans can do/say what they want (read above).
What is relevant is Rangers are making the mistakes of the past in a financial sense and their fans with their hatred to anything other than their own Klan is frankly an embarrassment to them and Scotland.
I have no problem Celtic playing a torunament to win it and make money, that is their business after all and if we can make double what the Rangers make and hump them as well then bragging rights.
The Sydney tournament is all about Ange and Celtic, the other Glasgow team are a mere cheap sideshow.
HH
It’s likely at this point that the Trademark isn’t enforceable even if the board or management at Celtic issued a cease and desist order. There’s a long-standing legal principle that intellectual property rights have to be legally defended if they are to remain valid. Brands such as Kleenex & Xerox lost their trademark protection after years of customers using their brand names to describe any generic product performing the same function as the original branded product (and crucially without any legal challenge from Kleenex & Xerox during those years). With as long as fans and media outlets have been using the ‘Old Firm’ tag line with nary a peep from Celtic’s lawyers, it’s doubtful that Trademark can ever be enforced again.
100% agreement. I said the other day my Aussie cousin called it the “Old Firm” game, as advertised. Trouble is you now see and hear it everywhere in the uk. Its circulation and use is widespread again, bbc, sky, itv, sportscene, sportsound, css, uk newspapers, ex players, some fans, etc, now Australia. Seems they’ve stooped so low they’re using Ange to spread their agreement and resolution lies to OZ. Does HH now stand for Half Huns?
it doesn’t take much of a deep dive to see what Celtic FC have done about all or even one of these breaches? No point in waiting for the answer, we all know it. I’m sick to the teeth of these pacifist money grabbing liars. Charlatans and hypocrites one and all. I’ll support the team but I’ll no longer support Celtic football club financially or verbally. ST ripped, Ctv cancelled, no more kits for me and the bhoys.
The phrase ‘Auld Firm’ was coined around 1903, I think, to reference the two ‘biggest’ clubs in Scotland. Rangers* may still have the previous club Rangers’ fan-base but they are essentially a new club since 2012 and not a well or fairly run one at that. To associate Celtic with such a club, rife with inherited racism and sectarianism, is a millstone.