Man City v Santiago City: Chilean minnows ignore PL champions legal demands | OneFootball

Chilean third-tier outfit Santiago City have never played a match, yet still find themselves in the midst of a bizarre legal dispute with the owners of reigning Premier League champions Manchester City.

The City Football Group (CFG) controls a host of clubs around the globe aside in addition to Pep Guardiola’s men, with teams in the United States, Australia, India, Japan, Spain, Uruguay, China, Belgium and France.

They haven’t, as of yet, ventured as far as Chile, though.

Apparently concerned that fans might confuse an upstart, lower-level South American side with the five-time Premier League winners, Man City’s owners fired a formal warning to Santiago officials over the striking resemblance between the clubs’ crests.

Per the Daily Mail, CFG sent a nine-page document to the Chilean minnows via local lawyers at the end of last month, complaining that the Santiago City badge heavily resembles Man City’s.

That paperwork, known as a cease and desist order, alleges ‘unauthorised use’ of Man City trademarks and design characteristics.

You can check out the two club crests below – and Man City chiefs undeniably have a point. Some might question whether they needed to go quite as far as to recruit Chilean legal representation, but here we are.

Upstart Chilean side Santiago City’s club crest looks very familiar

While Man City’s owners are clearly taking the matter very seriously, the same can’t be said about Santiago City.

Although the Chilean minnows did shut down their website in response to the legal claim, their official Twitter account is still active – together with the disputed crest as their profile picture.

On Wednesday evening, images of the Santiago squad in pre-season training were uploaded to the platform, with their players still wearing kit displaying the club badge.

Santiago City defy Man City lawyers by continuing to train wearing disputed club crest

Now, it’s probably not realistic for most lower-division sides to rustle up new gear on short notice, but Santiago City are fortunate enough to have a sponsorship deal with Adidas ahead of their debut season.

Had team officials wanted to, they could surely have made an attempt to secure alternative attire for their players, or at least stuck some tape over the disputed badge in an attempt to obscure it.

That they did neither – and then uploaded the photos to social media – tells a lot about their attitude towards the case.

Football mascots quiz: Can you name the weird and wonderful characters at British clubs?

1 of 20

Let’s start easy: who’s this iconic character?

Jurassic Jeff The Green Gunner Gunnersaurus Rex Triassic Tony

In an interview conducted before the issues with Man City flared up, Santiago City’s president Jorge Sotomayor admitted he had “big ambitions” for the club, hoping that they’d become known as one of the biggest in Chile.

After taking on the might of Manchester City, their name has spread far further than he could ever have believed.

All this before they have even kicked a ball in a senior match.