Athletic reply with style after UPN complaint over new shirt | OneFootball

Athletic responded on social media hours after UPN moved to file a complaint over the club’s new shirt, choosing a deliberately elegant post.

According to El Correo, the regionalist party lodged its case with the Professional Competition Committee on Friday after warning it would act when the design was unveiled at the Bernabéu last weekend.

The club posted a profile photo of Robert Navarro in the new shirt, the image clearly showing the map of Euskal Herria with seven Basque provinces, the element at the heart of the row. The pairing invited an immediate association between the contested map and the player’s surname, and the post carried the tagline gure nortasuna, translated as our personality.

UPN argues that placing Navarre within Euskal Herria serves as a political message of territorial integration and, under the current constitutional framework, breaches Navarre’s legal, administrative and institutional reality. Party president Cristina Ibarrola noted that many Navarrese Athletic supporters had voiced opposition to the image, and stressed the decision was taken with absolute respect for those who feel like lions and for the fanbase as a whole, which she said is not to blame for the board’s choice.

The complaint quickly drew backing from PP and Vox, while PNV rejected it. The media storm prompted the Navarre government to issue a public statement rejecting interference, saying the shirt’s map does not affect the community’s reality or its official symbols.

Source: El Correo