The fans of Athletic Bilbao are furious right now. This is not because a star player has been sold off. Nor because an unpopular coach has been appointed.
Their indignation, in fact, is due to the club having chosen an outrageously post-modern shirt for the team’s campaign in next season’s Uefa Cup.
Three weeks ago, when Athletic finished fifth in ”la Liga” and thereby claimed a place in the tournament, the Basque club had the brilliant idea of staging a competition among local artists and designers to design a challenging shirt for Europe.
Last Friday the club announced that the winner was Dario Urzay, 46, a local abstract artist who has some of his work’s on show in the city’s avant-garde Museo Guggenheim.
Club president Ignacio Ugartetxe then showed off Urzay’s shirt to the media… and was greeted with gasps of astonishment and outrage.
Urzay’s creation is, to say the least, different. He has foregone the club’s traditional red and white stripes for a space-age design of asymmetric red smears and flashes.
Looking for all the world like the emperor without his clothes, Ugartetxe tried to silence the gasps and jeers by claiming that he ”really liked” the new shirt. ”It is modern, eh, unique and interesting”, he mumbled. He wound up the ill-fated presentation by suggesting that ”it could even intimidate our opponents”.
The reactions of the media were immediate and derogatory. ”This shirt is a monstrosity”, declared local daily El Correo on Saturday, whilst rival paper Deiea claimed that ”it is an insult to the long traditions of our glorious club”.
An internet poll organized by El Correo shows that no less than 62% of the fans see the new shirt as ”ugly or very ugly”, with only 27% seeing any beauty in it. An irate group of fans has formed a pressure group called ”Supporters for a Traditional Shirt”, and plans to hold a massive protest meeting on Thursday outside the club’s offices.
Galder Ardanza, one of the leaders of the protest movement, wrote on the group’s specially created website on Wednesday that ”never in the 105-year history of our magnificent club have the players had to wear such a hideous shirt… never before have our historic red and white stripes been abandoned.”
Most of the Athletic players have refused to be drawn into the controversy. Veteran forward Ismael Urzaiz said that ”some people might see it as handsome, maybe”, whilst young defender Asier del Horno — struggling to toe the club line — claimed that ”it is certainly different, even challenging.”
Former Athletic stars, in contrast, have refused to bite their tongues about Urzay’s creation. ”I think it’s a horrible shirt”, said 1980s hero Manuel Sarabia on Tuesday, whilst 1970s star Dani Bazan called it on Wednesday ”an ugly, unpleasant thing.”
Urzay, far from being defensive about his creation, claims that it is a ”stimulating design that could be the envy of other clubs.” — Sapa