Millwall considers legal action after council uses badge on KKK image

Westminster City Council’s use of Millwall’s registered badge on an illustration of a Ku Klux Klan member has triggered a legal review by the club and raised serious questions about how a children’s anti-racism booklet was cleared for schools in the first place.

The booklet, The Paul Canoville Story, was distributed in primary schools in Westminster and was meant to illustrate the history of racism in football. Instead, it placed Millwall’s crest on the image of a white supremacist hate group member, creating a backlash that the council now says should never have happened. Westminster City Council apologised on 23 April 2026, removed the booklet from circulation and said it was reviewing its internal processes to prevent a repeat.

Millwall said it had received a full apology and that the image had created a false and damaging picture of the club. The Championship side said no more copies would be made or distributed and that all remaining material in the council’s possession would be destroyed. The club is still considering its legal position. That leaves open the possibility of a dispute over the misuse of a registered badge in a publicly distributed education resource aimed at children.

The booklet focused on Paul Canoville, whom Chelsea describe as the first Black player to appear for their men’s first team. Chelsea say Canoville signed from Hillingdon Borough in December 1981, made his debut as a substitute at Crystal Palace in April 1982 and played 103 games for the club between 1981 and 1986. Chelsea later renamed their former Centenary Hall at Stamford Bridge the Paul Canoville Suite in June 2021.

Reports identified Peter Daniel, an education and interpretation officer at Westminster City Council, as the booklet’s author. That detail is likely to deepen scrutiny over who signed off the material, what checks were applied before it reached primary schools and whether the council’s editing and approval systems were fit for purpose.

For Millwall, the reputational damage lands in familiar territory. The club has long battled stereotypes and discrimination issues in football, even as it sits third in the Championship and continues its push for automatic promotion to the Premier League. For Westminster City Council, the episode is now less about intent than institutional failure: a public body set out to challenge racism and instead produced an error that linked a football club’s badge to one of the most hateful symbols in modern history.