FC Edinburgh to appear in SPFL fixtures after Edinburgh City change name
- Published
Edinburgh City won promotion from Scottish League 2 for the first time
A new name - FC Edinburgh - will appear in Scottish League 1 when the SPFL announces its fixtures for season 2022-23 on Friday morning.
It comes after a last-minute name change by Edinburgh City as they prepare for their first-ever season in Scotland's third tier.
Chairman Jim Brown told BBC Scotland they felt forced into the move because "we don't own the name Edinburgh City".
He said the local social club had thwarted attempts to switch ownership.
"The social club owns the name Edinburgh City Football Club Limited, so we were trading as Edinburgh City Football and Athletic Limited," he earlier told a live broadcast to fans.
"We've asked the social club on numerous occasions if they would let us have the name. We have a letter from the social club saying we can use the name, which is great just now, but going forward we've got no guarantees and the social club have stopped communicating with us now."
Brown said that the club's lawyers had been pushing for the name change as a result of promotion.
FC Edinburgh had been chosen as it was a form used by many clubs on mainland Europe and the club believed retaining the capital city's name was "key" for branding purposes.
"We spoke with supporters and it's difficult to keep everybody happy with a name and we had a short timescale to decide," Brown explained.
"We are all proud to be in Edinburgh and will always be an Edinburgh team under our stewardship."
Brown pointed out that it coincides with the club "moving back to our spiritual home" of Meadowbank Stadium, which has been redeveloped.
Edinburgh City first switched to the athletics stadium built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games in 1996 after Meadowbank Thistle's move and name change to Livingston, but they have spent the last three seasons as tenants of Lowland League club Spartans at Ainslie Park.
Edinburgh changed their logo and name on their Twitter account on Thursday