Best Football Crests in Australia, Ranked Worst to Best

It feels cruel to kick a club while it's down — the Rebels slid into voluntary administration in 2024 and were dropped from Super Rugby Pacific after fourteen seasons, cruelly in the very year they finally reached the finals — but the badge was a mess long before the lights went out. The typography is stuck in a time warp, with kerning and weights that collapse the instant you shrink it to a social avatar. The hierarchy is inverted, the club almost embarrassed to lead with Melbourne, one of the world's genuinely great design cities. And those stars gesture at meaning without ever landing on any. There's no conversation between type and shield, no local anchor, no single confident idea holding it together. The only thing rebellious here is how many rules one badge manages to break at once.

Picture the kickoff meeting: a room asked to bottle the essence of Melbourne, landing on… the weather. It's a naming misfire the design never recovers from, because a storm is a devil to draw with any local specificity — and sure enough the illustration is generic, the symmetry off, the hierarchy upside-down with the nickname shouting over the city. The palette does the club no favours either; the purple-and-navy reads muddy at small sizes and murkier still in reverse. A shame, because this is a serious outfit — four-time premiers (1999, 2012, 2017 and 2020, with two further titles from 2007 and 2009 stripped in the 2010 salary-cap scandal that Melbourne fans still can't discuss calmly). The football's been thunderous. The crest is just thunderously bad.

What is it? What does it represent? The lone orange 'G' is doing an enormous amount of heavy lifting and buckling under the weight. 'G' is one of the most beautiful letters in the alphabet, yet this one is flat, weightless and disconnected from the type beside it, and the whole composition lacks any real symmetry or anchor. The name doesn't help — 'Greater Western Sydney' reads like a line in a street directory rather than a football club, an administrative region hoping to become an identity. For an expansion side launched in 2012 with the specific job of winning over a vast, sceptical slab of Sydney, the badge needed warmth and a story to tell. Instead it's abstraction in search of a meaning. No, no, no.

North Queensland is one of the most beautiful corners of the planet. This is, regrettably, one of the ugliest crests on it. The core failing is legibility: the elements fight one another, the star floats beneath the type for no discernible reason, and at any real distance the whole thing dissolves into visual noise. There's no clear focal point, no confident hierarchy, nothing that reads cleanly on a jersey, let alone a phone icon. It's a special shame for the club that gave us Johnathan Thurston's golden-point field goal and the fairytale 2015 premiership — a story with genuine romance in it, none of which the badge manages to carry a drop of. Delete, take a breath, and start again from a blank page.

Born in 1877 as Footscray, the club sanded off its suburb in 1996 chasing a vaguer, 'universal' appeal — and the badge has felt rootless ever since. A glance at Barcelona, Liverpool or a fiercely local Collingwood would have shown that keeping your postcode widens the tent rather than shrinking it. What's left is a grab-bag of the era's worst habits: a redundant written nickname beneath the bulldog it already depicts, a dated eighties illustration, and typography that never once shakes hands with the image. The blue-red-white palette is fine; the assembly around it is not. For the club whose 2016 flag broke a 62-year drought — one of the great modern football stories — this deserved to be so much more than a small step up from doggy-do.

Māori-inspired design is one of the most elegant visual traditions on earth, which should have made this an open goal. Instead the execution fumbles it badly: the linework is clumsy, the colours unfortunate, and the koru-style motifs lose all their grace in the translation to a sports badge. The type inside the nickname is generic and adds nothing, while the composition never settles into the balance the source material demands. For a club that has carried the flag for New Zealand league since 1995 — and sits on a cultural heritage most clubs would give an arm for — this is the very definition of a squandered opportunity. Get the right designer, honour the tradition with real care, and this could leap up the ladder overnight. The raw material is extraordinary; the handling isn't.

A mess, and a maddening one, because there's a genuinely good idea buried in here somewhere. The crest omits the location entirely, the typography is graceless, and spelling out 'Suns' beneath the sun makes the whole thing read more like a brand of rice than an AFL club born in 2011. The rising-sun motif is one of the richest in all of design — look at how Japan builds an entire flag around it — yet none of that power survives the journey. The colours are loud without ever being distinctive, and there's not a single element you'd recognise shrunk to a thumbnail. So much potential, so little of it executed. Please, delete and start again — and this time, let the sun do the talking.

Forgettable, which is the unkindest verdict of all. The alliteration is pleasant enough, but the name has no real tie to the steel city, the Trump-red ribbon up top floats free of everything below it, and the helmet is stock-generic — a knight anyone could have drawn in an afternoon. There's no energy in the angles, no local anchor, no reason this badge couldn't belong to a dozen other clubs. Which stings, because the history is anything but generic: founded in 1988 and twice a premier, including the fairytale 1997 ARL decider settled by Darren Albert's try in the dying seconds, just as BHP was shutting the town's steelworks, and the 2001 title behind a peak Andrew Johns. The club means something. The badge simply hasn't worked out what yet.

Why write the nickname when the lion is right there, roaring? The redundancy is the least of it. The type is dated, the illustration clumsy, and the whole thing reads as though it were cut and pasted from an eighties clip-art library. Lions are the single most over-used motif in world football, so the bar for standing out is brutally high — and this clears none of it. The maroon-and-gold palette has real potential, but it's undercut by an execution with no craft or confidence behind it. For a club forged in the bruising 1996 Bears–Fitzroy merger, then good enough to three-peat from 2001 to 2003, this might just be the weakest lion in the entire pride. Time to send the beast back to the studio and let it off the leash.

A genuine question worth asking: were the Glory, founded back in 1995, the first Australian club to reach for a purely abstract, place-free moniker? The rising-sun burst is a solid concept, but the execution falls well short, and that patched soccer ball drops the whole badge straight into the nineties. There's no contrast to rescue it — the colours sit flat against one another, the type lacks presence, and nothing here would survive being reduced to an app icon. Worse, 'Glory' anchors the club to a feeling rather than a place, the exact sin the strongest badges take pains to avoid. There's a decent idea in that sunburst somewhere; it's buried under dated execution and in dire need of a modern makeover.

Sorry, Reds, but this one needed a refresh yesterday. The name is the sole redeeming feature — 'Adelaide United' does its job cleanly and roots the club properly in place — but everything around it works against it: a misshapen crest, a baffling comet, and stars drawn as though from memory rather than reference. The colours are busy, the hierarchy unclear, and there's no single confident element to hang an identity on. Since their 2003 birth the club has been one of the A-League's most consistent and best-supported sides, with a genuinely fervent local following that deserves a badge to match the noise it makes. This isn't it. Book a designer, protect the name, and rebuild everything else outward from the postcode.

There's a certain charm to the foundation clubs of 1908 — you can picture someone glancing out the window, spotting the nearest animal and whacking it on a badge. Like a lot of league sides, it borrows heavily from American sport, then commits the cardinal sin of doubling up the nickname beneath a logo that already, plainly, shows a rooster. The type is generic, the illustration could be far sharper, and for all the eastern-suburbs swagger this club carries, almost none of that place or personality makes it into the mark. The red, white and blue is at least honest and ownable. But a club this successful, and this old, should own something far more distinctive than a stock bird sitting on a shield.

We love a pun as much as anyone, but 'Victory' carries all the gravitas of a glass of milk, and the inverted hierarchy — nickname over city — only underlines the emptiness. The typography is the real culprit here: clumsy, underdeveloped, with bleeding shadows that feel a decade out of date and a long way from Melbourne's genuinely sophisticated design culture. The big 'V' has the bones of an icon, and, reminiscent of the AFL's state-of-origin guernseys, could be genuinely powerful if it were only given room to breathe. As it stands it's cramped and muddy, in real need of a clean-up. Strip it right back, trust the V to carry the load, and there's a strong, confident badge waiting to be uncovered underneath.

Another preposterously generic name holds this one back, which is a genuine pity, because blending a black swan with a cyclone is an intriguing idea — and one with real local resonance for Western Australia. The problem, as so often, is execution: the shearing applied to both the type and the logo throws the whole thing off balance, and the linework is too light to hold up when it shrinks or reverses. There's no weight, no anchor, no single element that commands the eye. Cut from Super Rugby in 2017 and stubbornly, admirably revived since, the Force have shown more fight off the pitch than most clubs manage on it. Their badge deserves to carry more of that defiance — and, frankly, a good deal more force.

Type 'Crows Football Club' into any free image library and you suspect this would be the very first result. The palette is a riot — the club seems intent on using every colour it can lay hands on — and the American-styled crow feels stranded in the nineties. Not the cool, Nirvana-soundtracked nineties, either; the tacky-TV-graphics nineties. It's busy where it should be disciplined, loud where it should be confident, and there's nothing here you'd recognise at a glance or trust at small sizes. For South Australia's first AFL side — a genuine trailblazer when they entered the competition in 1991 — it reads as cheap and a touch anonymous. Fewer colours, a fiercer bird and a great deal more restraint, and there's a proper badge hiding in here.

They've attempted the near-impossible — making a koala look genuinely fierce — and, to their real credit, very nearly pulled it off; there's proper character in the animal. The odd bit is the total absence of Queensland anywhere on the badge. Instead we get 'reds', a label the colour scheme already shouts loudly enough on its own, which leaves the word feeling redundant and the identity oddly generic. The palette is strong and ownable, but the composition doesn't quite integrate type and image, and little about it ties the whole thing to place. As 2011 Super Rugby champions with a proud history, the Reds could afford to back themselves more — lean harder into Queensland, trust the koala to do the work, and lose the word that's already been said out loud.

A hilariously generic name paired with a cookie-cutter crest that positively reeks of committee. To its modest credit, the 'W' could have been a good deal worse — it neatly forms its own crest shape, which is genuinely tidy thinking — but no amount of clever geometry can rescue a name with no location and no identity behind it. The green-and-black is fine; the overall impression is anonymous. It's the same trap the Western Bulldogs fell into: chasing a vague region rather than a real place, and ending up nowhere in particular. For all that, credit where it's due — this is a club that won the championship in only its third season, in 2022, so the ambition on the pitch is real. The badge simply hasn't caught up to it.

Why is 'United' shouting over 'Canberra'? The hierarchy is backwards, the colours are cheap, and the central image is a genuine riddle — Parliament House, or something else entirely? — that leaves you squinting rather than recognising. There's a want of balance throughout, and the metaphors never quite resolve into meaning. The real frustration is the missed opportunity: Canberra is a city with gorgeous deco and brutalist bones, a purpose-built capital full of graphic possibility, and none of that character has been allowed anywhere near the crest. A genuine trailblazer of the women's game deserves a badge that cements its ties to the city as firmly as the city's own architecture. Lead with Canberra, lean hard into that design heritage, and begin again.

Another badge that skips its location entirely and simply repeats the nickname. It takes obvious cues from the Rabbitohs' single-emblem playbook, with a splash of Miami thrown in for good measure, and while the artwork itself is competently executed, the overall effect is generic — a dolphin that could belong to anywhere warm. The colours are clean and it does at least read at small sizes, so the technical fundamentals are sound enough. But there's no local anchor, no story, nothing that says Redcliffe specifically. Remarkable, really, that the NRL's shiny new 17th club — the first expansion side since 2007, handed the blank canvas most designers dream of — has arrived already looking faintly dated. The bones are here. The identity isn't yet.

So many questions. Why 'Raiders'? Why a Viking, some ten thousand kilometres from the nearest longboat? Park the morally wobbly name and symbology for a moment and the illustration is genuinely well drawn — the type is neat, the colours confident, the craft undeniable. The trouble is connection: the badge and the lettering feel like strangers who've been introduced but haven't yet spoken, and none of it says Canberra in any meaningful way. Technically it's among the more competent marks down at this end, which only sharpens the frustration. For the club of the great late-eighties and nineties sides — premiers in 1989, 1990 and 1994 — the execution is plainly there. It's the meaning, and the local anchor, that have gone missing.

Another quiet letdown. Why is there no real nod to the area, and why repeat the nickname in type when the bulldog already says it for you? The hand-rendered lettering along the bottom is genuinely lovely — there's craft and character in it — but the type up top is stock-generic, and the two never reconcile into a single voice. The badge shape is uninspiring and the illustration curiously passive, all of which drains the excitement from one of the most famously combative, us-against-the-world clubs in the game. Founded in 1935 with a proper working-class western-Sydney identity, the Bulldogs have a story well worth telling. This badge tells only half of it and mumbles the rest. Trust the hand-drawn type, ditch the redundancy, and there's something here.

The name does a genuinely fine job of evoking the region — wild horses, the high country, a real sense of place — but the illustration lets it down, and paired with that slab typeface the whole thing feels overly indebted to 1980s American college sport. Horses gallop across football crests the world over, so standing out demands a craft this badge doesn't quite muster; the mark is stiff where it should have movement in it. The colours are solid and it holds together at size, so it's no disaster. But given how good this side has been — twice Super Rugby champions, in 2001 and 2004, and one of the great development clubs in the game — you want a crest with the same gallop and swagger. Right now, it merely trots.

The minimalist type is welcome, and in a sea of overwrought shields there's genuinely something to be said for restraint. But this feels like a missed opportunity dressed up as discipline. The interlocking letters are neat, yet it's a device we've seen a hundred times — from the Yankees on down — and there's nothing here that speaks to what the club actually stands for, its wharfside roots, or its fiercely loyal support. Black-and-white should be the easiest brief in design: maximum contrast, maximum impact. For one of Australia's oldest clubs, founded in 1870, and the 2004 premiers, this plays it far too safe, landing somewhere between tasteful and anonymous. A little courage, a little local specificity, and the monochrome could have really sung.

We're all for minimalism, but the lack of refinement here — and the genuinely peculiar decision to leave the 'F' out of a Fremantle badge — pushes restraint over the edge into vagueness. The result reads less like a football club and more like a slightly upmarket fish-and-chip shop: pleasant, tasteful, and utterly forgettable. The anchor motif is a reasonable nod to the port, but it's rendered without enough conviction to carry a whole identity, and the palette does little to set it apart. There's a strong, salt-stung, dockside story to tell here, and almost none of it makes the badge. Freo might take a leaf from the Western Sydney Wanderers or Melbourne Demons — clubs that prove simple and characterful aren't opposites. Commit to the port, and commit to the F.

Generally well executed, and a clear step up from the bottom of the table — but it still gives off an unmistakable American clip-art whiff, the kangaroo rendered with more energy than local feeling. Real credit, though, for one act of restraint half this list couldn't manage: they resisted writing 'Kangaroos' beneath the kangaroo. The blue-and-white is honest and the shape holds together at size. The typography is where it slips, feeling cheap and a touch hurried for a club tracing its roots all the way back to 1869. The bones of a good badge are all here; it's the finish that lets it down. Sharpen the type, lift the craft on the roo, and North would climb several rungs without much trouble at all.

A cracking, alliterative name — one of the best in the game — all undone by a clumsy illustration completely divorced from the type, and a back-to-front running order of nickname-then-name that reads oddly the moment you notice it. The maroon is strong and unmistakably Queensland, and at small sizes it holds up better than most down here, so the fundamentals aren't the issue. It's the craft: the horse is stock, the composition disconnected, the whole thing a clear notch below what the club actually is. For the NRL's great 1988 expansion success story — six-time premiers and one of the biggest brands in Australian sport — this is lazy where it ought to be commanding. Reconnect the type and image, and there's a genuinely strong badge within easy reach.

It strives for iconic and simple, and gets closer than most. The panther is well drawn — sleek, prowling, with real menace to it — and the current palette is a considerable step up from the muddy chocolate-brown of yesteryear. But there's a disconnect between the type and the illustration, as though the two were designed in different rooms on different days, and the odd shearing on the 'P' and 'S' is genuinely off-putting once you clock it. It's a badge that's most of the way to excellent and keeps tripping over its own details. For the mark of a four-peat dynasty — premiers every year from 2021 to 2024, one of the great runs in the game's history — it should swagger. Tidy the type, lose the shear, and let the panther own the whole thing.

It's the detail most people miss: that whale, fleece, bull and ship, framed by the St George's cross and royal crown, aren't generic Mancunian filler at all — they're lifted almost wholesale from the official City of Melbourne coat of arms, granted in 1940 and based on the city seal of 1843, representing the colony's founding industries of whaling, wool, cattle and shipping. So this is, in fact, about as Melbourne as a badge gets. The fair criticism is that City Football Group's 2014 rebrand of Melbourne Heart crams the whole civic shield in rather than editing it — the symbols are handsome but busy, and there's little room for any of them to breathe. A lighter, braver hand would let that genuine local heritage read clearly, rather than blurring it into an all-purpose City-group template.

Amalgamated clubs so often end up with names cobbled together to satisfy lawyers rather than fans, and the 2000 Wests–Balmain marriage is exhibit A — a hyphenated compromise that reads like a merger memo. The illustration, in fairness, shows real promise; the tiger has movement and intent. But it cries out for refinement and far tighter integration with the type, which currently sits apart from the image rather than working alongside it. The orange-and-black is bold and ownable, and technically it survives shrinking better than most. The 2005 premiership proved the spirit's there — a genuine underdog fairytale — but the badge hasn't caught up to the club it represents. Marry that type to the tiger properly, and it climbs the order quickly.

Despite the tenuous link between the Gold Coast and mythological Titans, this badge is a pleasant surprise. For once the type and image actually talk to one another, the symmetry is handled with care, and the blue-and-gold colours complement rather than compete. It reads cleanly at size and holds its shape as an avatar — the technical fundamentals are genuinely strong. It's still very American in feel, all chrome and muscle, which won't be to every taste. But if any city in the country could carry that glossy, sun-and-surf swagger, it's the Gold Coast — and a 2007 expansion club with no deep heritage to honour was arguably free to lean right into it. One of the more cohesive marks in the NRL, and neat proof that connection beats complexity every time.

Yet another badge that needlessly spells out its nickname beneath the animal it already shows. The eagle's head is well drawn — there's genuine craft in it — but there's zero connection between that illustration and the typography, which looks hastily slapped together beside it. The blue-and-gold is strong and the eagle has real presence, so the raw materials are good; it's the assembly that comes off amateurish. For a four-time premiership powerhouse since 1987 — one of the great forces of the modern AFL — the overall effect undersells the club considerably. The fix is almost embarrassingly simple: lose the written nickname, rebuild the type to match the quality of the bird, and then let a well-drawn eagle do exactly what a well-drawn eagle is supposed to do.

The illustration is well crafted — the sea eagle has real drama to it — but the badge stumbles on the same familiar suspects that plague half this list. The nickname is duplicated in type beneath the bird, the hierarchy is upside-down with the location trailing behind rather than leading, and image and lettering never quite shake hands. The maroon-and-white is distinctive and it holds together at size, so it isn't a technical failure so much as a compositional one. For one of the game's great polarising clubs — loved and loathed in roughly equal measure, founded in 1947 — you want a badge with the same conviction as the fanbase. Fix the hierarchy, drop the redundant word, and this leaps up the order almost by itself.

Beautifully symmetrical and thoughtfully composed — the evenly balanced ribbons and the little circular flourishes worked into the lettering are the kind of details you only notice on the good ones (and yes, surely make KFC sponsors-in-waiting). It's a badge with real craft and genuine visual balance, comfortably among the more considered marks in the AFL. The one head-scratcher is the prominent crucifix, which feels redundant given the name already does the religious heavy lifting, and a touch heavy-handed for a club born in 1873 with a thoroughly secular modern following. The red, white and black is handsome and it holds up well at small sizes. Rethink that central symbol, lighten its dominance, and a strong badge becomes an excellent one.

There's a lovely retro charm to this one, the kind that shouldn't work in 2026 and somehow does — undone, sadly, by the typography and that dated soccer ball. The wave concept is strong and genuinely of the place, evoking the Coast's beaches and its seafaring name, but it needs to integrate far more tightly with the lettering, which currently sits apart from the imagery. The navy-and-yellow is distinctive and it reads at size. For a club perched in Gosford since 2004 — a proper community outfit that has punched well above its budget for years — there's real identity here to build on. Honestly, our biggest gripe is that a badge with this much coastal charm couldn't find room for a single cheeky palm.

Generic name aside, there's genuine intrigue here — the reversed ribbon shadowing adds welcome depth to an otherwise flat illustration style, a small piece of craft that quietly lifts the whole mark. Lose the heavy strokes around the lion, though, and it would work far better reversed or printed in black-and-white, where right now it muddies. The orange is bold and properly ownable, and the composition has more going on than a glance suggests. As back-to-back champions in 2011 and 2012 — with club roots stretching all the way back to Hollandia in 1957 — the Roar carry a good deal more history than their expansion-era name lets on. There's a tidy, characterful badge in here; it just needs an editor to strip the excess and let the lion breathe.

The shark's movement is clever — there's real dynamism in the illustration, a sense of the thing surging forward — and it's among the better-drawn animals on the whole list. What dates it is the typography and, inevitably, the unnecessary double-up of the nickname in written form beneath a shark that plainly needs no introduction. The blue-and-black is clean and it reads at size, so the fundamentals are sound; a few careful tweaks and this could be dragged happily into the present. Fitting, really, for the Shire club founded in 1967 that spent nearly fifty years chasing a premiership before finally landing the big one in 2016 — a story of patience rewarded. Modernise the type, trust the shark, and it climbs.

Back in the day, we adored this one, and there's still a great deal to admire. Yes, it's dated and overly busy by modern standards — a lot of badge to cram into a small avatar — but the clever use of negative shapes to suggest depth is genuinely intriguing, and the way the dragon bursts out of the crest adds real drama and movement. The red-and-white carries proper weight. There's serious history behind it, too: the St George half won an astonishing eleven straight premierships from 1956 to 1966 before the 1999 joint venture with Illawarra. The type could be sharpened and the detail thinned for smaller sizes, but as a piece of pure storytelling on a shield, this remains a genuinely solid, characterful design.

Not at all bad, and better the longer you look — but there's so much more to mine here. The bull is strong and regionally apt, a nod to south-west Sydney's farming heritage, and it very nearly forms a crest shape all on its own. Which raises a tantalising question: could each side of the bull's silhouette also read as a figure kicking a ball? Given how close the horns already come to framing the mark, you could bin the outer shield entirely and corral the type neatly within their span — tighter, cleverer, more distinctive. The black-and-gold is handsome and it reads well small. For south-west Sydney's class of 2020, this is a genuinely promising start, with a great badge hiding just one bold edit away.

Comfortably the best crest in Australian rugby, and it isn't especially close. It's well balanced, admirably simple and expertly executed — the sort of restraint the codes above it could stand to learn from. The only real quibble is that off-centre seam on the ball, which should either commit to being properly off-centre or sit dead-centre; caught between the two, it just looks slightly unresolved. We'd also love to see 'NSW' anchored somewhere more clearly. But these are quibbles. The waratah — the state's own floral emblem — has adorned New South Wales rugby since the 1880s, giving this badge a genuine, century-deep connection to place that most of the list would envy, and the 2014 Super Rugby title proved the substance matches the style.

Type-as-art done properly, with the club's initials and the shield shape fused into something genuinely elegant — a monogram that earns its place rather than merely filling a space. If anything, the word up top cheapens the badge slightly and overpowers the refined lettering beneath; here, less really would be more. The navy-and-red is deep and handsome, and the mark carries real authority at size. What lifts it from a decent design into a meaningful one is the history: founded in 1858 and widely held to be among the oldest football clubs anywhere on earth, with the 2021 premiership finally ending a 57-year wait that had become part of the club's very identity. Trim the type, trust the monogram, and one of the game's oldest clubs has a badge worthy of the pedigree.

Hats off, first, for keeping the name — living proof that you don't have to bin your roots to be popular, and few clubs anywhere, since 1892, are more popular (or more cheerfully loathed) than this one. The decision to retain the historical elements is exactly right, and the black-and-white is about as ownable as a palette gets in the game. The weak link is the magpie: passive in its posture and a little rough in the drawing, it lets a strong, heritage-rich badge down at the crucial moment. There's real equity here to build on. The challenge is Juventus-grade iconoclasm — the nerve to simplify a beloved mark without losing its soul. Redraw that magpie with genuine attitude, and one of the game's biggest brands has a badge to match its size.

First, let's toast a club — established in 1885 — that resisted the near-universal urge to write 'Tigers' on the Tigers' badge. Restraint like that deserves recognition, and there are strong ideas here besides: the incorporation of the yellow sash into the crest is genuinely clever, tying the mark to one of the most recognisable guernseys in the game. Where it falls short is finish. The illustration could be pushed considerably further, and the connection between the name and the badge could be far tighter than it currently is. The black-and-yellow is bold and unmistakable, and the recent history is glorious — three flags from 2017 to 2020, one of the great modern dynasties. The substance is all there. A sharper hand on the detail, and it climbs.

A big step up from the club's previous mark, even if it stops short of fully refined. The typography feels a touch generic, and the unresolved shapes and shadows inside the stylised Opera House sap the badge's punch the moment it's reversed or printed in mono — a real problem for a crest that has to work across every format going. The sky-blue is premium and completely theirs, which is half the battle won before you start. Tidy up the slightly muddy colour mixes, resolve the Opera House so it reads cleanly at any size, and the league's self-styled glamour club — champions several times over since its 2004 birth — would have a badge to match the trophy haul. The ambition's right. It's the execution that needs one more pass.

Strong bones, in want of a trim. The core idea is sound, but the badge is carrying weight it doesn't need: lose the redundant 'Jets' wordmark and the ribbon it rests on, simplify the fussy aircraft shapes, and the whole composition tightens up immediately. The red-and-gold is distinctive and the mark holds together at size, so the fundamentals are there. What's missing is discipline — an editor's eye to cut back to the essentials and let the strongest element lead the way. The 2008 champions, whose grand-final win remains one of the A-League's great days, have more here than first meets the eye. A confident simplification would turn a good badge into a genuinely sharp one, and lift it up the order.

This could be outstanding — the raw materials are all present and correct. A strong, region-rooted symbol, bold colour, and a genuinely dynamic design, all working in the badge's favour. What holds it back is proportion: the truncated shape leaves the whole thing looking slightly squashed, as though compressed to fit a space it's already outgrown. A slimmer triangle, a smaller label and a touch more contrast would lend it real sophistication and let the design breathe from a distance. The red-and-black is handsome and unmistakable. For the sixteen-time premiers — founded in 1872 and tied for the most flags in the game's history — this is a badge reaching for greatness and landing just short of it. Fix the proportions, sharpen the contrast, and it's a top-tier mark.

You needn't write the nickname when the hawk is already right there, mid-swoop — and that single oversight is the only real blemish on an otherwise excellent badge. The bird is well illustrated, full of intent, and cleverly nods to the club's famous striped guernsey without ever labouring the point. The brown-and-gold is one of the most distinctive palettes in the game, warm and unmistakable, and the whole thing reads with real authority at any size. Strip away the redundant lettering and this becomes an outright belter — one of the best marks in the AFL, full stop. For a club founded in 1902 and responsible for the 2013–2015 three-peat, one of the great modern dynasties, the pedigree is there. Trust the hawk, lose the caption, and let it fly.

A smart, if fairly obvious, choice of name for the AFL's long-awaited 19th licence, due to enter the competition in 2028 after a genuinely bruising political fight simply to exist. The type is neat and the mark has character, though 'Tasmania' risks vanishing at small sizes and the nickname above the logo is surplus to requirements. The green, red and gold is bold and unmistakably of the island, which counts for a great deal. The cartoonish illustration style might raise an eyebrow or two in Warner Bros' legal department, and the contrast wants lifting so it holds up at distance. Still, for a club that doesn't yet exist on the field, this is a confident, place-proud start — and we're genuinely curious to see whether they hold their nerve on that controversial 'map of Tassie' guernsey.

Once again, a club underrates its supporters by writing 'Cats' beneath a picture of a cat — a genuine shame, because the rest is strong and the central device is properly clever. The use of negative space to draw the cat is the badge's real triumph, the kind of confident graphic thinking most of this list can't manage, and the navy-and-white hoops tie it neatly to one of the game's oldest guernseys. Our only other note is that the cat could stand to look a touch fiercer — it's handsome, but you'd like it to bite. For one of the oldest clubs in the game, founded in 1859, and a genuine modern powerhouse, this is a whisker away from excellent. Lose the caption, sharpen the teeth, and it soars.

The Yankees pioneered the art of type-as-art, and you can feel that ambition running right through Carlton's badge — a confident, monogram-led mark that trusts a single letter to carry the whole identity. The execution sits just a notch behind the aspiration: the asymmetry and the oddly truncated letters make it feel slightly awkward once you notice them, and a steadier hand would iron that out. But this is a genuinely strong badge, and it looks superb on what remains one of the best guernseys in Australian sport — that deep navy with the sharp white 'CFC'. For the sixteen-time premiers, tied for the most flags in the game and playing since 1864, it's a mark with real heritage and presence. A little more polish on the letterforms, and it's close to untouchable.

A cool retro vibe that harks straight back to Parramatta's early-eighties pomp, when they won four premierships in six seasons and briefly owned the competition outright. There's something genuinely lovely about the illustration — the eel curling through the mark with real character — and the blue-and-gold is warm and distinctive. The room for improvement lies in the balance: it could be rebalanced and given a subtle modern twist while keeping every bit of that retro charm, and, crucially, the full sinuous shape of the eel could have been used to house the crest rather than sitting inside a more conventional roundel — a properly missed opportunity. Founded in 1947 with a proud western-Sydney identity, the Eels have the makings of a great badge here. A thoughtful refresh, not a rebuild, and it's top three.

The restrained palette, the iconic red 'V', and the brave decision not to bury it all inside a traditional shield are exactly the right calls — this is a badge with real confidence and modern poise. Fine-tune the feathers so they hint a little more at the Opera House, sort the slight misalignment in the right eye, and lift the underwhelming type, and you'd have something close to perfect. The red-and-white is clean and reads beautifully at any size, from guernsey to avatar. And what a journey sits behind it: a club born as South Melbourne in 1874, relocated north to Sydney in 1982 in one of the game's great gambles, and now a genuine institution deep in a rival code's heartland. A handful of small refinements away from the very top.

About as iconic as Australian sport gets. We can't think of another sporting brand that glides so effortlessly between the worlds of fashion and football — so genuinely iconic that you don't even miss the absence of a nameplate or any lettering at all. Other clubs got marked down hard for going wordless; the Rabbitohs, foundation members from 1908 and the most decorated club in the competition's history (these days with a little help from Russell Crowe), have earned the right several times over. The single-emblem gamble only pays off when you've spent a century making the emblem unmistakable, and Souths have done exactly that. The illustration is top-notch, the red-and-green unmistakable, and the whole thing reads perfectly from a jersey to a phone screen. Hats off.

Borrowing cheerfully from Inter Milan, the league's newest club has arrived with a badge that's off to a genuine flier. It's beautifully balanced, with neat nods to the knight theme and the club's striped kit, a lovely, disciplined palette, and — the detail that seals it — a clever 'hidden' 'A' forming the very top of the shield, the kind of quiet cleverness that rewards a second look. It reads cleanly at every size, which so many crests further down this list simply can't claim. Proof, really, that you can launch from nothing in 2024 on an American billionaire's dollar and still nail the branding from day one, rather than treating the badge as an afterthought to be fixed later. A superb debut mark, and the highest-placed newcomer on the whole board for good reason.

A beauty, and comfortably one of the finest crests in world football, not merely this list. The typography is gorgeous, the placement of the 'FC' clever, the colours clearly and confidently defined, the symmetry close to perfect — and the classically drawn phoenix at its heart has genuine craft and drama, rising exactly as it should. It reads immaculately at any size, from the shirt to the smallest avatar. The only smudge on an almost flawless mark is the slightly over-prominent nickname inside the crest, a small excess on an otherwise wonderfully disciplined design. Not bad at all for the 2007 club that rose, with a certain poetic aptness, from the ashes of the collapsed New Zealand Knights. Bravo, Wellington — a genuine masterclass in doing a great deal with restraint.

Our champion, and a thoroughly deserving one. A peerlessly executed crest, born from a faultless bond with its fans from the very first day and a classy, understated homage to the area's deep footballing past. The illustration is simple yet genuinely timeless — the kind of mark that will look as right in fifty years as it does today — and the typography surrounding the shield is elegantly restrained, never shouting, never cluttered. It reads flawlessly at every scale, a stadium banner and a phone icon with equal ease. No stigma, no gimmick, no wasted element anywhere: just quiet, total confidence. Founded in 2012 and in the AFC Champions League final within two seasons — winning it, no less — the Wanderers are the only club here whose badge feels every bit as good as the story behind it. Bravo.