For a club that are very proud of their history and tradition (other fans might say overly so) Liverpool could really do with updating their sponsors on all that culture.
The club recently signed a sponsorship deal with Dunkin Donuts, an American company that specialise in coffee and, you guessed it, doughnuts. The original deal was criticised for the fact that it teamed a football club up with doughnut shop but everyone quickly forgot about that until last night when Dunkin sent out the above tweet much to the anger of Liverpool fans everywhere.
As part of a social media campaign, the Liverpool crest had been morphed into a Dunkin logo. That's bad enough but this being Liverpool, there's more than just a simple crest at play. The Shankly Gates emblem was replaced with coffee and doughnuts, 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was replaced with 'America Runs On Dunkin' and worst of all, the eternal flames were replaced with frozen coffee drinks.
The fact that the eternal flames were added to the crest in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster obviously wasn't explained to Dunkin.
The backlash started immediately and the tweet was soon deleted but, as tends to happen, not before a screenshot was taken numerous times and republished by angry Liverpool fans.
The retribution against the club's 'commercial partner' was swift.
I wonder if @DunkinDonuts are putting an apology together or just hoping it goes away. pic.twitter.com/usasZy1ap4
— Jim Boardman (@JimBoardman) February 25, 2015
@JimBoardman @DunkinDonuts Oh the rewards of globalization for the Club.
— Ken Solomon (@kensol001) February 25, 2015
Someone from Dunkin Donuts is getting sacked in the morning. That was really stupid.
— Robert O'Reardon (@Robbie_OR) February 25, 2015
There was significantly more of a backlash and the company have released a statement apologising for the situation.
Apology from @DunkinDonuts #LFC pic.twitter.com/ZhQc8k0I2V
— Anfield Europe (@AnfieldEurope) February 26, 2015
