City of Liverpool FC is delighted by the decision of the IPO to reject Liverpool FC’s application to trademark the word “Liverpool” in a wide array of football related contexts, following our formal objections, the complaints of local independent traders and eventually those of Liverpool City Council.

As we stated initially, this caused us significant difficulties in a practical sense with the ongoing use of our own club’s name and, from a moral perspective, we simply don’t believe that any privately owned business should ever be allowed to own and profit from the name of the name of the city, and the accumulated collective endeavours of its people, in any context.

We had positive engagement with LFC Chief Executive Peter Moore and re-stated our position to him in person. He agreed to provide legal protections in perpetuity to the club, so in a legal context we had already secured our victory back in July.

However, we continued to offer moral support to the local independent traders in their efforts, so it is good news today for all complainants.

Some of our Directors and many of our supporters are long standing supporters of Liverpool FC and we undertook our legal actions with no pleasure whatsoever. We acted in this matter to protect our football club and to act as a local, critical friend to Liverpool FC and hopefully this whole, sorry episode can now be put behind everybody.