It is a gala match – and that is an understatement – which is taking shape, Wednesday January 29, 2025 in Roudourou, in Guingamp, where the Stade Brestois 29 will welcome, for the last day of the league phase, Real Madrid. A meeting for which, as for the others since the start of the European adventure, the Finistère club put a collector's scarf on sale. Normally in the colors of both teams. Except this time, there's a catch. And size.
The other seven clubs but not Real
Because, unlike all the other products marketed since the start of the competition, the Real Madrid crest does not appear on those around this long-awaited match. No more, moreover, than on the scarf with the logos of all the opponents that Stade Brestois faced this year in the European Cup: from Sturm Graz to Shakhtar Donetsk via Salzburg, Bayer Leverkusen, Sparta Prague, Barcelona and PSV Eindhoven.
A constraint to which we had to adapt for a Stade Brestois which had no say in the story. No more than Lille which also played Real Madrid in the Champions League without being able to exploit the logo of the Spanish club. But why was there no problem for the other teams and there, yes? “It’s simple,” replies Stade Brestois. We purchase merchandise through official UEFA suppliers and take products from their Champions League catalogue. Among our opponents, only Real has not given its consent to the UEFA licensed supplier for its logo to be used.
A decision linked to tensions between the Madrid club (largely in favor of the creation of the Super League, a closed competition which would compete with the Champions League) and UEFA? Real have never officially explained their position. But the open conflict between its president and the European body is no secret. In November, Florentino Pérez took another swipe at UEFA.
-For its part, the Brest club indicates that it has never been in direct contact with Real Madrid on these questions of merchandising and derivative products. Which obviously did not prevent him from providing himself with scarves for this undoubtedly historic meeting. But without the logo. “We just had the right to put “Madrid”, not even “Real””, specifies Brest. In Ligue 1, only Paris-Saint-Germain refuses to allow its crest to be used to make match scarves.
