The football clubs own their flag designs, FDEV makes money from those designs, surely FDEV would be capitalism gone mad if they were able make money from other peoples property without have to pay compensation?
I was more surprised by the absurdity of a government charging license fees for use of their flag in a computer game.
As for sport teams, Fdev could add big fat color stripes or a giant generic logo
eg: the CMDR's rank symbol, powers logos, paid logo
to all ships, then a CMDR can choose which colors those stripes or logo are to be and then add another nameplate.
That could be a workaround against royalties, since it is a player's choice what they want to use and there is no copyrights on what color combinations are allowed.
If there is litigation, then that is insane.
Sure its not as good as an official sports team's pennants but its not as if the clubs are gonna have ready made graphics for ED.