Photo/Illutration The J.League will require all teams to use a standardized font for players’ names and numbers on jerseys from next season.

A uniform decision by the J.League has created a sort of identity crisis among soccer fans around Japan.

The professional football league in mid-September announced plans to standardize the typography for players’ names and numbers on their jerseys from next season.

The idea is to make players more identifiable for viewers watching games on the small screens of smartphones and tablet computers.

Many fans, however, are turned off by the move.

“Keep your noses out of each team’s identity,” an unhappy fan wrote on the league’s official website.

The league also said that teams can use only five colors for the names and numbers on jerseys—white, blue, red, black and yellow.

“The options are too few, don’t you think?” another dissenting fan posted on the website. “Team color is really about a combination of the jersey’s colors and fonts.”

Currently, each club has chosen its own fonts and colors for the uniforms. Some teams have developed well-coordinated marketing plans by making original fonts and typography part of the identity of the club and its fan base.

But from the next season, all teams, from the J1 top division through J3, will be required to use a font created by a northern European company in official matches, except certain championship games.

J.League officials defended the decision, saying the five colors account for 91 percent of all colors used by all clubs in the past three years.

The need for a font change started after DAZN, an English subscription sports streaming service, started showing J.League games in 2017.

Some viewers complained that the players’ names and numbers on their jerseys were difficult to read on a small screen.

In February 2018, league officials began thinking about a standard for jersey fonts and colors.

Japanese officials took ideas from precedents abroad, including the standardization implemented by the Premier League of England in 1997, and considered a color variation unique to Japanese.

One J.League official said he heard from a retired player that he had hard time recognizing certain fonts while playing on the pitch.

Officials learned about color vision diversity and conducted repeated tests.

Multiple companies submitted the ideas and prototype uniforms to the league.

Officials analyzed colors and contrasts under numerous situations and conditions, such as how each prototype looked in sunlight, shade and even drenched in sweat.

They also sought opinions from top-class referees and adopted an EU standard on fonts that are discernable from 50 meters away.

During the two-and-a-half-year period of trial and error, league officials focused mainly on producing a result that would win approval from the teams.

It was not an easy task to convince teams like J1’s Shimizu S-Pulse and J2’s Tokyo Verdy, whose original fonts make them easily identifiable brands.

Jef United, a J2 club in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, has used the same fonts for the team logo and other equipment since 1992, a year before the J.League’s inaugural season.

The fonts are tied into the team mascot’s design, loved by fans and have been an important part of the club’s identity and history.

Some fans are already asking Jef United officials what they plan to do about the league’s order.

Team officials said the club shares the league’s opinion that “legibility” and “branding” are important in the standardization of fonts.

“Therefore, we have told the league that we don’t see the need for the change,” one official said. But the team “will follow the (new rule) as a member of the J.League.”

The J.league is expected to use the standardized font for at least three years.

“The standardized font will not significantly destroy each club’s personality and identity,” a league official said.

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