The Greuther Fürth logo is the crest of SpVgg Greuther Fürth, a German football club from Fürth in Bavaria. Since July 2017 it has been a green three-leaf clover inside a ring, with no lettering at all. The logo has carried that clover in some form since 1906, three years after the club started in 1903, and it belongs to the wider family of green logos in football.
German football club branding tends to stay close to regional heraldry, and Greuther Fürth is a strong example. The clover is borrowed from the city’s coat of arms. The biggest departure from it came after a 1996 merger, when a wooden clog from the partner club joined the badge for about two decades. The 2017 crest took it back out.
What is the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo?
The SpVgg Greuther Fürth logo is a green three-leaf clover inside a green ring on white, introduced in July 2017 when the club retired its merger-era shield and wooden clog. No designer has been publicly credited. The clover comes from the coat of arms of the city of Fürth.
| Symbol | Three-leaf clover (Kleeblatt) in a ring |
| Designer/agency | Not publicly credited |
| Current version since | July 2017 |
| Colors (hex) | Green (approx. #2FA641, from the Wikimedia Commons file of the 2017 crest) and white (#FFFFFF) |
| Typeface | None; the current crest has no lettering |
| Previous major version | 2003–2017 shield with clover, wooden clog and, at first, three stars |
How Has the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Evolved Over Time?
Four stages are documented: the traditional clover crest from 1906, a round merger logo in 1996, a shield in 2003, and the clover-only crest of 2017.
Some logo histories online list six versions, with changes in 1932 and 1950. We could not find a reliable source for those two dates, so they are not repeated here. Small redraws of the old crest certainly happened over 90 years, but they are not well recorded.
Old SpVgg Fürth Clover Crest (1906–1996)
The club began on 23 September 1903 as the football section of the gymnastics club TV Fürth 1860 and became independent as SpVgg Fürth in November 1906. FürthWiki dates the clover to that same year, taken from the city’s coat of arms.
This is the crest of the club’s great era, with German championships in 1914, 1926 and 1929. It stayed in use, as what German Wikipedia calls the traditional crest, until the 1996 merger. No designer is on record.
Round Merger Logo With the Clog (1996–2003)
On 1 July 1996 the football section of TSV Vestenbergsgreuth joined the club, which became SpVgg Greuther Fürth. The traditional crest gave way to a round logo combining the Fürth clover with the wooden clog (Holzschuh) of Vestenbergsgreuth.
90min later summed up this period as a logo mix-up of the two original clubs. The clog is why old versions of the badge feature a small piece of red and black alongside the green.
Shield With Clog and Three Stars (2003–2017)
For the club’s 100th anniversary in 2003 the crest was changed to a shield. The clover sat at the top, breaking out of a green and white striped header, next to the clog. Below it came “SpVgg Greuther Fürth” and 1903 in green.
Three stars above the shield stood for the three German titles. German Wikipedia reports that the club later had to remove them from its official shirts, which is why the shield also circulates without stars. This was the badge during Fürth’s first Bundesliga season in 2012-13.
Current Clover Crest (2017–Present)
In July 2017 the club replaced the shield with the clover on its own, set in a ring. The clog, the stars, the club name and the founding year all went. As 90min put it, the logo has been the clover alone since 2017.
The change also fits an old argument among supporters. A fan campaign to drop “Greuther” from the name has been running for years, and t-online reported in August 2026 that members were due to vote on it on the weekend of 7 and 8 November 2026. The crest had already made that move visually. This version was on the shirt for the club’s second Bundesliga promotion in 2021.
What Do the Design Elements of the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Mean?
The crest has one real idea: the clover of the city of Fürth.
The ring adds no recorded meaning of its own. It simply frames the symbol. What meaning there is sits in the clover and in the decisions about what to add around it, or take away.
Why Is the Cloverleaf the Central Symbol?
Because it is the city’s. Fürth’s coat of arms shows a green three-leaf clover on a white (silver) shield. The clover first appears on 18 January 1562, in the seal of a Bamberg official named Johann Hornung, so it is an early modern symbol and not a medieval one as often claimed. The current drawing of the city arms is by Prof. Otto Hupp and was approved in 1939.
The football club adopted the symbol in 1906 and it gave the club its nickname: the Kleeblätter, or Kleeblatt Fürth.
Why Did SpVgg Greuther Fürth Choose These Specific Colors?
White and green are the club colors, and they match the city’s flag and arms. The evidence suggests they were inherited with the symbol, though we found no founding-era document spelling out the choice.
The red and black in the old shield belonged to the clog, not to the club’s own palette. With the clog gone, the current crest is strictly two colors.
What Typography Style Is Used in the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo?
The current crest has no typography in it, so there is no font to name.
The 2003 shield did have lettering: a condensed, upright sans-serif font in green, with “Greuther Fürth” set much larger than “SpVgg” and a lighter “1903” underneath. The typeface has not been publicly identified, and no club source names it.
That typographic hierarchy is what the 2017 redesign removed. It leaves the job of identification entirely to the symbol.
What Are the Hidden Meanings in the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo?
There are no known hidden design tricks in the badge. No negative space illusions, no concealed initials.
The three leaves do attract theories, mostly about the city arms. FürthWiki lists them:
- Three rulers: Bamberg, Ansbach and Nuremberg, the three territorial powers over Fürth. It is the most popular explanation but FürthWiki considers it historically unsupported.
- Three religions: Protestants, Catholics and Jews living together, also popular and also doubtful.
- The Trinity: the likeliest origin according to FürthWiki, since the first seal came from a Bamberg cathedral office.
- Luck and harmony: the reading favored by historian Adolf Schwammberger, “three and yet one”.
The three championships are sometimes linked to the three leaves as well. That is a coincidence, since the clover predates all of the titles.
How Does the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Compare to Competitor Logos?
Fürth sits among German clubs that lean on local symbols, but it is unusual in reducing that symbol to a single mark with no name attached.
The Hannover 96 logo makes a neat comparison: it is also reduced to one idea in a ring, but the idea is a number and not a civic symbol. The FC Köln logo has a billy goat mascot, and the FC Augsburg logo is another regional crest worth setting beside it.
The Borussia Dortmund logo is also round but is built on letters. The Werder Bremen logo shares the green and white and uses a diamond around a W. The Bayer Leverkusen logo is the opposite case, drawn from the Bayer company’s cross.
Internationally, the closest comparison is Celtic FC, another green and white club with a clover and hooped shirts. The SC Freiburg logo offers another useful comparison within Germany, as a club with a similarly long-standing regional following.
What Are the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Colors?
The club colors are white and green, but we found no published hex code, Pantone, RGB or CMYK value from the club. Earlier claims of “PMS 355 C” and “Fürth Green” had no source behind them, and they have been dropped.
The best available reference is the SVG of the 2017 crest on Wikimedia Commons, which uses #2FA641 for the green and #FFFFFF for the white. The file was traced from a club document, so treat the green as approximate.
Print and web versions of the color palette can also differ slightly, as they do for most clubs.
What Cultural Impact Has the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Had?
The clover links the club and the city directly, since it is the same symbol on the city’s flag and on supporter scarves.
Henry Kissinger, born in Fürth in 1923, is the club’s best-known fan. German Wikipedia describes him as an honorary member and a supporter since his youth, who followed its results and sat in the stands for a home game against Schalke in September 2012.
Green and white hoops are a familiar look on Fürth shirts, and the combination with a clover invites comparison with Celtic. The two clubs have no formal link that we could find.
The crest also became part of the debate about the club’s name. Fans behind the “Zurück zur SpVgg Fürth” campaign argue that the name no longer reflects the club, and the 2017 badge fits with that view. That gives the design a charge that few redesigns have.
The storytelling built into the badge is simple enough to survive without words, which is the point of taking the words out.
How Does the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Fit Into the Overall Brand Identity?
Green and white hoops, scarves and flags all use the clover as their anchor, and it now works as a logo and a nickname at once. Puma makes the kits as of 2026-27, with Hummel an earlier supplier, including in 2017-18.
The home ground is the Sportpark Ronhof, officially “Sportpark Ronhof | Thomas Sommer” since 1 February 2016. It was earlier the Playmobil-Stadion, a naming deal from 1997 that older articles still quote as current. The club plays in the 2. Bundesliga in 2026-27.
The club has not published any brand guidelines or brand style guide that we could find, so nothing can be said about its internal rules. On shirts and scarves, the visual hierarchy is easy to see: a single clover needs little else around it.
How Should the SpVgg Greuther Fürth Logo Be Used?
This is general advice, not a rule published by the club. Football crests are normally protected as trademarks, and the club holds the rights to its own badge.
- Merchandise, advertising and anything that sells a product needs the club’s permission.
- Editorial use, such as a news report about the club, is usually treated differently, but the details depend on the country, so check if you are unsure.
- Don’t redraw or recolor the crest when reporting on it, and make sure you use the 2017 version unless you are discussing history.
For production, a vector graphic scales without quality loss, while a bitmap such as a PNG suits web use. If you print a bitmap, check its DPI first.
FAQ on The Greuther Fürth Logo
What does the Greuther Fürth logo represent?
It shows a three-leaf clover taken from the coat of arms of the city of Fürth. It stands for the city and gives the club its nickname, the Kleeblätter. The club has used the clover since 1906.
What are the official colors of the Greuther Fürth badge?
The club colors are green and white. The club has not published a code that we could find, but the Wikimedia Commons file of the 2017 crest uses approximately #2FA641 and #FFFFFF.
What did the old Greuther Fürth logo look like?
From 2003 to 2017 it was a shield with the clover and a wooden clog at the top, the words “SpVgg Greuther Fürth” and 1903, at first with three stars above. From 1996 to 2003 it was a round logo that also combined clover and clog.
Why was there a shoe on the Greuther Fürth logo?
The wooden clog (Holzschuh) was the symbol of TSV Vestenbergsgreuth, whose football section joined the club in 1996. It stayed on the crest until the 2017 redesign.
When was the current Greuther Fürth crest introduced?
In July 2017. It removed the clog, the stars and the club name, leaving only the clover in a ring.
Who designed the Greuther Fürth logo?
No designer or agency has been publicly credited for the current crest or for the earlier club versions. The city’s coat of arms, the source of the clover, was drawn in its current form by Prof. Otto Hupp and approved in 1939.
How many times has the Greuther Fürth logo changed?
Four main stages are documented: the traditional clover crest from 1906, the round logo of 1996, the shield of 2003 and the clover crest of 2017. Smaller redraws of the old crest are not well recorded.
What font is used in the SpVgg Greuther Fürth logo?
The current crest has no lettering, so it has no font. The 2003 shield used a condensed sans-serif whose typeface has not been publicly identified.
Why does the Greuther Fürth logo look similar to the Celtic FC badge?
Both clubs use a clover with green and white. The resemblance is a coincidence: Fürth’s clover comes from its city arms, while Celtic’s comes from the club’s Irish roots. We found no formal link between them.
Does the three-leaf clover stand for Fürth’s three titles?
No. The club adopted the clover in 1906, before its titles of 1914, 1926 and 1929. The three stars on the 2003 shield were the elements that stood for those championships.
Can the Greuther Fürth logo be used commercially?
Not without the club’s permission. As general advice, merchandise and advertising need a licence, while editorial use is usually treated differently depending on the country.
How does the Greuther Fürth logo compare to other German club badges?
It is among the most reduced, with a single symbol and no name. The VfL Bochum logo and VfB Stuttgart logo, for example, put much more weight on the club’s initials.
Conclusion
The Greuther Fürth logo is a rare case of a club simplifying its way back to where it started.
The clover came from the city’s arms in 1906, was joined by a clog after the 1996 merger and by stars in 2003, and stood alone again from July 2017.
That kind of reversal is hard to find across NFL logos, NBA logos, or most European football clubs at any level.
Whatever the members decide about the name, the club badge no longer depends on it.
Sources
- FürthWiki, SpVgg Greuther Fürth – https://www.fuerthwiki.de/wiki/index.php/SpVgg_Greuther_Fürth
- FürthWiki, Stadtwappen – https://www.fuerthwiki.de/wiki/index.php/Stadtwappen
- Wikipedia (German), SpVgg Greuther Fürth – https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpVgg_Greuther_Fürth
- 90min, Neues Logo, neues Glück: 9 krasse Änderungen des Vereinswappens – https://www.90min.de/posts/neues-logo-neues-gluck-9-krasse-anderungen-des-vereinswappens
- Wikimedia Commons, SpVgg Greuther Fürth 2017.svg – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SpVgg_Greuther_F%C3%BCrth_2017.svg
- t-online, SpVgg Greuther Fürth: Mitglieder stimmen über Vereinsnamen ab – https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/2-bundesliga/id_101371700/spvgg-greuther-fuerth-mitglieder-stimmen-ueber-vereinsnamen-ab.html
- inFranken, Fürther Fans fordern Namensänderung: “Zurück zur SpVgg Fürth” – https://www.infranken.de/lk/fuerth/sport/fan-kampagne-zurueck-zur-spvgg-fuerth-art-4082801
- Footy Headlines, Greuther Fürth 26-27 Away Kit Released – https://www.footyheadlines.com/5667338078/greuther-furth-26-27-away-kit-released.html
Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.
His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.
He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.
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Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008. Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients. His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8. He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.
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