http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jul/09/manchester-city-sheikh-mansour-stadium How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" cries John Proctor, before death, in Arthur Miller's persecution classic, The Crucible. Now he might shout: "How much am I bid?" A tour of American sport could lead you to the Dunkin' Donuts Center, the Quicken Loans Arena, the KFC Yum! Center, US Cellular Field or the Gaylord Entertainment Center, home to the Nashville Predators. It might also take in Wrigley Field, one of the most evocative ballparks in the States since 1916, but named after a chewing gum tycoon. Here, in England, a tour of football's commanding heights would take one to the Emirates, the Reebok, the Britannia and, now, the Etihad, which, disappointingly for red Mancunians, turns out to mean "unity" and not "united", thus depriving Old Trafford of cosmic teasing rights every time City play at home. Sadly for Sunderland fans, the rechristening of their enemy's fortress to sportsdirect.com@St James' Park never quite took off, so Newcastle United remain in the queue of clubs desperate to flog off their identities. Manchester City's £400m deal with Etihad airlines completes the Abu Dhabi-isation of the old Maine Road set-up. It adds to Sheikh Mansour's outright ownership, plus existing deals with the telecoms company Etisalat, Aabar Investments PJSC and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. In essence, the emirate has annexed the club and spread the investment across Abu Dhabi's whole corporate sphere. But more intriguing than the passing of a stadium built with public money for the Manchester Commonwealth Games into the hands of a middle-eastern sheikhdom, is that a new Etihad Campus will transform a huge swathe of land around Eastlands (as was) to encompass a relocated training ground, youth academy, sports science facility, Etihad call centre and City Square retail space. Locals may recall Tony Blair's government believing that one way to regenerate this desperately deprived area was to open a super casino, which would at once lure people into gambling addictions while providing hundreds of low-paid jobs with anti-social and family-disrupting hours. Yes, in those New Labour market-sucking days, a super casino was actually seen as a piece of social engineering. Given the choice, most Mancunians would probably rather see an Etihad Campus, however weird it might look. The city council certainly would. Last year, it rewrote the stadium charter to allow City to sell the naming rights, which, in turn, will help the sheikh circumvent Uefa's forthcoming financial fair-play regulations. Faced with this gargantuan new challenge, directors at United, Chelsea and Liverpool will be thrashing in their sleep with thoughts of dazzling naming-rights deals. When Brighton and Hove Albion's new ground unveiled itself as the Amex Community Stadium, rather than the New Goldstone, many saw the heavy hand of corporate opportunism. But Brighton's deal with American Express emphasises the "community" aspect. It was part of the mission to secure planning permission and build more than a mere football ground (not that there's anything wrong with that). By an unlikely twist, the government of Abu Dhabi appears intent on carrying out regenerative work in east Manchester that our own slash-and-burn, unelected coalition is unable or unwilling to do. So, at least in that sense, the sale of City's house name has a socio-political purpose beyond diverting sponsor money straight to players and agents, though that will be the short-term effect. For the whole parish to benefit, the council will need to impose strict terms on the club to stop this Etihad Campus becoming an oasis of unreachable wealth. The lamentations over the sale of stadium naming rights are welcome because they keep the guard up against frivolous and greed-based tie-ups. Most Liverpool fans recoil at the idea of Anfield becoming, say, the PriceWaterhouseCooper Stadium, but are more amenable to the concept of a new ground in Stanley Park bearing a commercial moniker: if (and it's a giant if) it enables Kenny Dalglish to buy more players. The corporatisation of modern sport â the splattering of logos on jersey, pitch and referee â is indeed an affront. A seemingly irreversible crime against objectivity is the practice of sewing adverts on to the garments of match officials. This is only one step short of the police wearing ads for Doctor Marten's boots or News International. Naturally, the great stadium names exert a hypnotic pull. To say "I'm off to Candlestick Park" (in San Francisco) is infinitely preferable to telling friends "I've got tickets for 3Com or Monster Park", as the great bayside amphitheatre was for a while. Equally, you hope Chicago will always have Soldier Field and Boston Fenway Park, from where John W Henry and associates have until September to decide whether to redevelop Anfield or build in Stanley Park. So, as Leicester City reacquaint to life in the King Power Stadium (a cartoon hero, surely), there has to be something in these tradition-erasing deals for the community, the town, the supporters, beyond more reckless spending on players. Although it's a surreal sentence to type, the Etihad Campus fulfils some of those requirements, provided the people of Eastlands can use it without having to flash a titanium credit card.
This just shows how much some so called journo's know. Leicester are now owned by Thai's, and in Thailand the King is god. Unlike the UK he is still highly respected and loved by his counrty, and there is very strict laws what you can and can't do or say in reffering to the king. So that name makes sense to me, while the club is owned by them.
