Football
Tom Marshall, Mexico correspondent 7y

Club America apologise to fans for club's centennial anthem

Club America has won two important games over the last few days in its centennial season, but things haven't been so smooth-sailing off the field and especially on social networks.

Las Aguilas -- one of Mexico's "big two" clubs -- debuted their "centennial anthem" to celebrate the institution's first 100 years at half-time of last Saturday's game against Club Tijuana. Within minutes social networks began to pick up on the similarities between Club America's centennial song and Sevilla's official centennial tune from 2005.

The furor didn't die down. Club America and the song's author Jorge D'Alessio -- who denied the song was in any way a copy of Sevilla's anthem -- were forced to apologise, with Las Aguilas announcing that the song wouldn't be used at all in the future.

"Club de Futbol America offers an apology to the fans and everyone that has been offended by the presentation of the song," read the statement.

But it wasn't the only slip-up this week for Club America. The institution published a logo on its Facebook page ahead of Saturday's game that bears more than a slight resemblance to the one used by the U.S. Air Force.

The club stressed that it was in no way an official Club America logo and that the Community Manager had taken it from a separate website. The reaction online, however, was fierce, with the hashtag #plagiamemas ("Plagiarize me more") spreading as a play on the phrase "Hate me more" proudly used by Club America fans.

On the field, Club America did manage to reach the semifinals of the Copa MX on Tuesday night, after defeating Chiapas 3-2 in Estadio Azteca, while in the Liga MX Las Aguilas sit in fifth place and on course to make the playoffs.

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