Officials at a ladies’ football club have hit back in a row with Huddersfield Town.
Huddersfield Town Ladies FC have been told they will no longer be able to use the club’s name or kit come next May.
The two clubs – which had what was described as a “loose affiliation” – have had a fall-out over money.
Town have allowed the ladies team to use the club’s name and logo since 2010 and provided discounts on kit and free tickets to matches.
But this year, following the ladies’ team’s promotion to the FA Women’s Premier League North, the club asked Town for money.
Town, which has set up strong community links with around 40 local clubs, said they couldn’t offer cash but would provide support in other ways.
When talks failed to resolve the situation, Town ended the “loose affiliation” and gave the ladies’ team notice that they would withdraw permission to use the club’s name from the end of this season.
Town fans hearing the news reacted angrily, accusing the club of dumping the ladies’ team at a time when women’s football was on the up.
In a statement, the ladies’ team said they had taken legal advice over what had happened.
The statement said that after promotion the club approached Town and “asked if it would be possible that they could offer us some support by way of kit, or make some contribution to the additional costs relating to our promotion.”
The ladies’ team had spent money upgrading its home ground at Storthes Hall, putting a roof on a stand and erecting floodlights. Both were requirements of the FA Women’s Premier League.
Grants were received from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund and the Leslie Sports Foundation.
The statement added: “After a fairly negative response to our request for some help, Huddersfield Town Ladies had the ‘audacity’ to send an email questioning HTAFC’s lack of support and it appears that someone has taken umbrage.”
The ladies say they will now have to buy new kit for all 80-plus women and girls at a cost of up to £10,000 – money they don’t have.
The statement continues: “The whole situation is galling and particularly when in HTAFC’s new kit launch they used the image, via their Twitter feed, of a young girl to promote it with the words: ‘I’m seven-and-a-half and I want to play for Town.’
“Maybe now she’ll be denied that opportunity.”
The ladies’ team has called for a meeting with Town chairman Dean Hoyle and said it was “not too late for him to extricate his board from this unpleasant and embarrassing situation.”
The statement asks Town fans to get behind their campaign and contribute to a “fighting fund.”
A Town spokesman declined to add to the club’s previous statement.
