Judge rejects Man Utd’s ‘Football Manager’ fan site claims
The English High Court has blocked Manchester United from raising new claims involving a “Football Manager” fan website in its lawsuit against the makers of the video game.
Justice Paul Morgan of the English High Court yesterday, June 4, rejected Manchester United’s application to add a new claim to the trademark infringement suit filed last month.
The English football club is suing video game publisher Sega, and its subsidiary Sports Interactive (SI), for allegedly infringing its trademarks.
At the heart of Manchester United’s case is the unauthorised use of the club’s name throughout the game. But it also includes what its lawyer acknowledged as a more “novel” argument—that the absence of its official logo deprives Manchester United the chance to licence its trademark.
Most teams, including Manchester United, appear in “Football Manager” under their real name but with a generic shield-shaped crest generated using the team’s colours.
The club has argued that “consumers expect to see the club crest next to the name Manchester United”, and that the use of the name divorced from the crest is “wrongful use”.
The Premier League team has now put the spotlight on fan-run websites where players can download official logos to add to the game for free.
While Manchester United said it was not looking to formally add any of the fan sites as defendants in the case, it argued that fmscout.com should be considered “jointly liable” alongside Sega/SI since it promotes itself as an “official partner”.
The club made the argument as part of an application to add a new claim against Sega under Article 10 of the EU Trademark Regulation 2017/1001.
This provision allows trademark owners to prohibit the use of an identical mark on product packaging and labels, where they can prove a risk of such infringement exists.
According to the judge, Manchester United had not detailed sufficiently what the risk in this case was. Instead, Morgan wrote, the club had simply asserted that the “provision of modified software by parties such as amounted to the things prohibited by Article 10”.
“This is far from being an ideal way of pleading an infringement within Article 10,” Morgan added.
Sega and SI have denied the club’s broader allegations of trademark infringement, accusing the club of trying to “prevent legitimate competition in the video games field”.
The club has appeared in every edition of the game up until this point “without complaint”, they said.
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Judge rejects Man Utd's 'Football Manager' fan site claims
