Star (football badge)


In football, some national and club teams include one or more stars as part of the team badge appearing on their shirt, to represent important trophies the team has previously won. Often this is a unilateral decision by a team itself, rather than a specific privilege earned or sanctioned by any governing body, and as such, the relevance of these stars on a club's shirt is somewhat tenuous.

Standardised significance

Club

The first team in association football history to adopt a star was Juventus, who added one above their badge in 1958 to represent their tenth Italian Football Championship and Serie A title, at the time, the new national record. This was an extension of the existing convention by which the reigning champions are entitled to display the scudetto on their shirts for the following season. The star was later formally adopted by some organisations as a symbol for ten titles, and the ratio of one star for ten titles has become the "most common" arrangement.
Juventus unofficially won their 30th league title in 2011–12, but a dispute with the Italian Football Federation, who stripped Juventus of their 2004–05 and 2005–06 titles due to their involvement in a 2006 Italian football scandal, left their official total at 28. However, they elected to wear no stars at all the following season. Juventus won their 30th title in 2013–14 and thus earned the right to wear their third star, however, club president Andrea Agnelli stated that the club suspended the use of the stars until another team wins their 20th championship, thus having the right to wear two stars, "to emphasise Juventus' superiority". However, for the 2015–16 season, Juventus reintroduced the stars and added the third star to their jersey as well with new kit manufacturers Adidas.
In Scotland, Rangers displayed five stars above the badge on their shirts in 2003 to symbolise their 50 league titles. Celtic have one star above their badge to represent their triumph in the 1967 European Cup. Aberdeen displayed two stars to commemorate their 1980s wins in the European Cup Winners' Cup and European Super Cup.
Football in Germany has two official star systems operating in parallel. In 2004, the DFL, which governs the Bundesliga, introduced Verdiente Meistervereine. This has a sliding scale of 1, 2, 3, and 4 stars for 3, 5, 10, and 20 titles. It includes only Bundesliga titles, excluding titles from before the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, and from the former East German League. Dynamo Berlin unilaterally began wearing three unapproved stars for its East German titles. In November 2005, the DFB, which governs non-Bundesliga football, allowed former champions playing outside the Bundesliga to display a single star inscribed with the number of titles. In 2007, Dynamo Berlin switched to a single approved star inscribed with the number 10. Greuther Fürth retains three silver stars on its club badge, but not on its shirts.
Major League Soccer's previously informal system, one star per MLS Cup title, was standardised in 2006, with the defending champions wearing the MLS Scudetto, like the Serie A system, for one season before adding a new star. Starting in 2012, the Scudetto was replaced with a single gold star worn by reigning champions above any other silver championship stars. In 2016, this system changed again in recognition of the LA Galaxy's fifth championship title: champion clubs during their title defence will wear a large gold star above other smaller stars set in silver; clubs with five championships will wear one gold star; and teams with one-to-four MLS Cup wins will wear one silver star for each victory. In Australia, they also use a system based around different coloured stars for different trophy wins: Australian winners of the AFC Champions League will wear a gold star inscribed with the number of wins, while A-League and W-League victory is recognised with a silver star similarly embossed; reigning league or FFA Cup champions will also wear a gold competition emblem in the season following the championship.
In Norway a team will display a star for every 10 titles in Tippeligaen. Rosenborg is the only team with more than 10 titles. Since 2006, all Swedish football clubs that have won ten or more Swedish championships have added a star above their badge. Malmö FF added a second star following its 20th championship title win in 2017. The same system has applied in the Dutch Eredivisie from the 2007–08 season onwards. This innovation was suggested by PSV, after the club won its twentieth title in 2007. Ajax currently have the right to wear three stars since they have won the league more than 30 times. PSV have the right to wear two stars with their 21 league titles, while Feyenoord and HVV Den Haag can add one for their 15 and 10 titles, respectively. HVV won all titles before 1915 and is currently playing in the fourth level of the Dutch league system. In Malta, Floriana, Valletta and Sliema Wanderers boast 2 Golden Stars on their badges having won 25, 20 and 26 titles, respectively, while Hibernians have one star thanks to their 10 titles. No other team in the Maltese League has the golden star on their badge.
Occasionally, stars are added to badges of successor or phoenix clubs for the achievements of defunct predecessors. An example of this is the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They added a star to represent the Soccer Bowl, the championship of the original NASL, won by the original Tampa Bay Rowdies in 1975. The club has since added a second star, after the new club won the 2012 edition of the resurrected Soccer Bowl in the new NASL. This approach is atypical: neither the Montreal Impact nor the Seattle Sounders FC franchises retained the stars worn by the old clubs when they joined the MLS. In the case of the Impact, the new team paid tribute to the former team's first title through the stripes on their badge.
As well as predecessor clubs, victories in the national leagues of defunct countries have also been represented by stars. FC Dynamo Kyiv have two stars, commemorating championships won in the Soviet and Ukrainian football league systems. The same is true of Belgrade clubs Partizan and Red Star who have won titles in Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and present-day Serbia, while Spartak Moscow's four stars for every five league titles refer to their 22 Soviet Top League and Russian Football Premier League titles.
The star has given rise to a byword to winning trophies. Examples of this include when Fawaz Al-Hasawi, owner of Nottingham Forest, was quoted as saying "maybe will have a third star", and France international Paul Pogba's comments in the days before the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final: "Croatia do not have stars – they want one. They have done very well and they want the victory, like us. But I do not have a star. It’s on the shirt, but I did not win it. We want to go looking for it like all players."

International

had two stars above their badge in 1968. It was used briefly and then removed. After winning their third World Cup in 1970, three stars were officially added and Italy did likewise in 1982. Germany added three in 1996, one in each of the German flag's colours. All world champions have since followed suit. Brazil, Italy, and Germany have since added more stars, after they won later tournaments, while France are the most recent nation to add a star, commemorating their 2018 triumph less than an hour after victory in the Final.
Uruguay display four stars, including their triumphs in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, which are regarded as FIFA world championships by the governing body. The 1924 FIFA Congress ruled, “on condition that the Olympic Football Tournament takes place in accordance with the Regulations of FIFA, the latter shall recognize this as a world football championship”, and the 1924 and 1928 championships are regarded as equivalent to World Cups in the 1984 Official History of FIFA.
In the equipment regulations for FIFA competitions, section 16.1 states, "Those Member Associations that have won one or more of the previous editions of the FIFA World Cup or the FIFA Women's World Cup may display on the Playing Equipment used by their first men's or women's representative teams a five-pointed star, or other symbol as instructed by FIFA, per edition of the FIFA World Cup or FIFA Women's World Cup won by the Member Association." The form of symbol is now specified, the accompanying illustrative example depicts a gold star.

Ad hoc adoptions

More recently, club teams have added stars either upon winning a landmark trophy, or in response to a rival team's having added stars. In the Romanian first league, Steaua uses 2 stars above their badge since they won their 20th title. Since then Dinamo added a star for the 18 championships they won. Manchester United sported a star in their UEFA Champions League matches on their special European home kit between 1997 and 1999. To celebrate their second victory that year, they added an extra star to that kit for the 1999–00 season. Liverpool likewise wore four stars in 2001–02, their first campaign in the competition since the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. They wore five stars in the competition in 2005–06 after their fifth victory. Instead of stars, UEFA introduced a multiple winner badge in 2000–01 season, currently worn by five teams who have won the Champions League either five times or more in total, or three times in a row.
club Toulon are an example of this.
Occasionally, stars are temporarily added for one season, usually to commemorative kits to celebrate the anniversary of a particular event in the club's history. Burnley sported two stars on their 2006–07 shirt, for the club's 125th anniversary, to celebrate their two league titles in 1921 and 1960. Likewise Bury in 2009–10, also for their 125th anniversary, commemorating their 1900 and 1903 FA Cup triumphs; Bury have since revived the stars, from 2011–12, after a season's absence. Commemorating anniversaries in this way is not confined to English clubs: Peruvian side Universitario celebrated their 90th anniversary by adding 26 stars to their kits worn home and away. This is not a practice limited to clubs, as in 2004, Denmark wore a star on their shirts specially for Euro 2004, to commemorate their victory in the competition in 1992.
In women's football, the emerging ad hoc standard is to wear stars on the sleeve instead of above the badge. Two of the four teams that have won the FIFA Women's World Cup to date — Norway and Germany — use this practice, as did three-time Women's World Cup winners, the USA, until moving the stars to the back collar in 2007. The United States has returned its two stars to above the badge on their new uniforms for the 2011 Women's World Cup, and have added a third since their 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup championship.
The practice of using stars to signify major titles has spread to other football codes, and to unrelated sports. For example, in 2009, Meath senior Gaelic football team began wearing seven stars on their jerseys, signifying their seven All-Ireland Senior Football Championships. In rugby union, Toulon added a star above its badge after winning the Heineken Cup in 2013, added a second star immediately after winning the same competition in 2014 and a third after winning the inaugural European Rugby Champions Cup in 2015; English rugby union side Sale Sharks wear a gold star in tribute to their sole Premiership title. In basketball, the men's team of Indiana University Bloomington added five stars to its shorts, representing its five NCAA championships, for the 2015 NCAA tournament, and made the stars at that location a permanent fixture for the 2015–16 season.

List

Excluding the temporary stars, the following teams have chosen to add stars to their shirts:

National teams

Men

;Intercontinental
National TeamTitle
represented		First
worn		Number
of stars		Notes
World Cup19585Third win was in 1970; fourth and fifth stars added after 1994 and 2002 wins. Briefly wore 2 stars on a tour of Europe in 1968.
World Cup19344Added after third win; fourth star added after the 2006 win. Incorporated into the badge from 2005 to 2017.
World Cup19544Stars first added during Euro 1996 qualification, representing wins in 1954, 1974 and 1990. Worn above the badge. Fourth win was in 2014.
World Cup and Olympics19304 Represent 2 Olympic football titles and 2 World Cups
World Cup19782Titles won in 1978 and 1986. The stars were added in 2004.
World Cup19982Titles won in 1998 and 2018. The stars that were added above their badge were unveiled at their opening qualifying game for Euro 2000.
World Cup19661Title won in 1966. Star added in 2003 after a campaign on Sky Sports' Soccer AM programme, first worn on the sleeve.
World Cup20101Title won in 2010. Spain played in their away kit for the final, but upon winning the World Cup they changed into their home kit, complete with a star above the badge, for the presentation ceremony.

;Continental
National TeamTitle
represented		First
worn		Number
of stars		Notes
Africa Cup of Nations19867Fifth star added after the 2006 African Cup victory. A sixth is due for the 2008 African Cup victory. A seventh is due for the 2010 African Cup victory
Africa Cup of Nations200851984, 1988, 2000, 2002 A fifth is due for the 2017 tournament victory.
Africa Cup of Nations200841963, 1965, 1978, Fourth win was in 1982.
Asian Cup201141992, 2000, 2004, Fourth win was in 2011. For commemorative jerseys only.
African cup of nations201331980, 1994, Third win was in 2013.
Africa Cup of Nations19902Title won in 1990. Second title in 2019.
Africa Cup of Nations200221968, Second win was in 1974
Africa Cup of Nations19922Title won in 1992. Second title in 2015.
Copa América19392Title won in 1939. Second title in 1975.
Africa Cup of Nations19761Title won in 1976.
Africa Cup of Nations20041Title won in 2004.
Africa Cup of Nations20121Title won in 2012. To be worn from 2012 onwards.
AFC Asian Cup20191Title won in 2019.

Women

Note: Some women teams, like Uruguay or Brazil, wear the men's stars on their jersey.

Club teams

AFC

CAF

;Notes

CONCACAF

CONMEBOL

UEFA

Stars not signifying particular titles

American club Philadelphia Union has 13 stars that represent the 13 original colonies of the United States. Fellow Major League Soccer franchise Montreal Impact have four stars on their badge, which are symbolic of the nationalities of the peoples who founded the city of Montreal. The four nations are regularly used in Montreal imagery, as the city flag and coat of arms both reference them.
The badge of Peñarol of Uruguay has 11 stars for the 11 players.
The badge introduced by Manchester City in 1997 had three stars to give it a "more continental feel". The 3 stars do not represent titles or trophies. City brought in a new club badge in 2016 with no stars on it. Sivasspor of Turkey also has three stars on their badge. They do not represent any championships either.
Portsmouth F.C. has featured a star in its badge since 1913. The star does not represent trophies or titles won, instead, the Portsmouth badge was based upon symbols found in the official coat of arms owned by Portsmouth City Council.
For the 2002–03 season, the badge of Greek club Panathinaikos F.C. had 3 stars. One gold representing the team's partaking in the 1971 European Cup Final, and 2 white stars representing the team's participation at the 1985 European Cup semi-finals and the 1996 UEFA Champions League semi-finals respectively. Because none of these stars represent titles or trophies, opposition fans in Greece mocked this.
Johor Darul Takzim F.C. has 3 stars above its badge, for each time the club changed its name; from PKENJ to Johor and finally Johor Darul Takzim.
Following the crash of LaMia Flight 2933, Brazilian club Chapecoense incorporated a star into its badge as a tribute to those who perished in the incident.
Yeovil Town F.C. added three stars above its crest for 2017–18, for every five seasons they have remained in the English Football League.
Forest Green Rovers F.C. added three stars to the back of the neck area for 2018–19, to denote progression in the EFL. One star is coloured for promotion to League Two and the other two are faded until they reach the Championship.