This archive report was first published on 21 May 2020.
On May 21, 2020, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ) pulled a satirical mock-up of the Tokyo Olympics logo after Olympic organisers deemed it "insensitive" and a copyright infringement.
The design combined the distinctive image of the coronavirus cell with the blue-and-white Tokyo 2020 logo and appeared on the front page of an in-house magazine published by the FCCJ.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and halted sports worldwide.
FCCJ president Khaldon Azhari expressed "sincere regret" for the decision to withdraw the image and remove it from the club's website, citing advice that its legal defence against a potential copyright breach was "not strong".
"More importantly, we are all in this coronavirus crisis together and clearly the cover offended some people in our host country Japan," Azhari said.
Tokyo 2020 chief executive Toshiro Muto hailed the move, stating that the FCCJ's response was "appropriate" and in line with what the Olympic organisers had hoped for.
