Swiss coat of arms on national team jerseys – legal at last?
A Swiss ice hockey player in 2021
Keystone
Swiss national sports teams should be allowed to legally wear the Swiss coat of arms on their shirts in future. The Senate has adopted a motion to amend the Coat of Arms Protection Law accordingly.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA/ts
Deutsch
de
Ständerat will Schweizer Wappen auf Nati-Trikots erlauben
Original
Check out our selection of newsletters. Subscribe here.
On Wednesday it approved a motion by parliamentarian Damian Müller. The motion was prompted by recent appearances of the Swiss national ice hockey team, whose players appeared with the Swiss coat of arms on their jerseys.
According to Müller, the association was made aware of the improper use of the coat of arms back in 2018. The case is currently before the Federal Administrative Court.
The government had asked the Senate to reject the motion, saying sports associations are free to use the Swiss cross on their jerseys, but not the coat of arms. According to the government, the use of the Swiss cross on the coat of arms is reserved for the Swiss Confederation.
The Coat of Arms Protection Law protects communities in the use of their national emblems, the government said. At the same time, it protects against misleading misuse of symbols. In 2017, the corresponding provision was adopted almost unanimously by the Federal Assembly, the government wrote to the Senate.
However, Müller told the Senate that the use of the Swiss coat of arms by the national ice hockey team was “certainly not misuse”. “Let us correct this omission”. By 28 votes to ten with two abstentions, the Senate approved the motion, which still has to go to the House of Representatives.
A motion with the same wording by parliamentarian Matthias Aebischer is already pending there.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
What factors should be taken into account when inheriting Swiss citizenship abroad?
Should there be a limit to the passing on of Swiss citizenship? Or is the current practice too strict and it should still be possible to register after the age of 25?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
This content was published on
Scientists have shown that bonobos combine their calls into complex sound sequences that resemble combinations of human words.
This content was published on
US parliamentarians have threatened the UN Human Rights Council with sanctions similar to those against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This content was published on
Thanks to abundant snowfall, lift operators benefited from increased visitor numbers, with the number of guests jumping by 12% year-on-year.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.