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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... paign=1490

By Pete Jenson for MailOnline

Real Madrid set to rename stadium Abu Dhabi Bernabeu as part of £15m a year deal

Real Madrid agreed to sell naming rights to Abu Dhabi for €20m euros
Coca-Cola and Microsoft both showed interest in having name on stadium
According to AS the sponsors have settled on Abu Dhabi Bernabeu
The change won't happen until the stadium is remodelled


As well as having it’s name behind one of European football’s biggest clubs Manchester City, Abu Dhabi now looks set to have its name in front of one of the world’s most emblematic stadiums – the Santiago Bernabeu.

The Arab Emirate that has bankrolled Manchester City entered into a financial partnership with Real Madrid last November and for around £15million a year they have won the naming rights for the club’s stadium according to Diario AS.

Coca-Cola and Microsoft had both shown an interest in having their name on the Bernabeu but the race looks to have been won by the Spanish company Cespa which in turn is owned by the IPIC (International Petroleum Investment Company) which is owned by Abu Dhabi.

In November of last year when the three-year tie-up between IPIC and Real announced by Madrid, president Florentino Perez was caught on camera saying the stadium will be called ‘IPIC or Cespa, whatever they want’. According to the AS report the sponsors have settled for ‘Abu Dhabi Bernabeu’.

The renaming will not take place until the stadium is remodelled. Planning permission for the 500m euro project is currently stalled because of a European Commission enquiry into possible illegal state aid.

Real Madrid are currently finalising financing for the redevelopement and the somewhat unpopular sale of the stadium’s name is seen as one way to raise funds towards that end.

Dear Mr Gates,

We at Manchester City are getting pelters for sponsoring ourselves. Therefore, could you please pull out of the Real Madrid Deal and sponsor my own team, Manchester City. I will continue with the Real Madrid Sponsorship and ensure you get more advertising than you pay for. In fact we will be the biggest thing on earth in 10 years with our Microsoft academy.

Cheers
Sheik Mansour

Wonderwall wrote:Dear Mr Gates,

We at Manchester City are getting pelters for sponsoring ourselves. Therefore, could you please pull out of the Real Madrid Deal and sponsor my own team, Manchester City. I will continue with the Real Madrid Sponsorship and ensure you get more advertising than you pay for. In fact we will be the biggest thing on earth in 10 years with our Microsoft academy.

Cheers
Sheik Mansour

Wont be long.

If they were to sponsor one stadium at a large amount per year, and then sponsor the Etihad for the same amount, they could hardly claim we were distorting market value now, could they?

I was sure this was a piss take when I heard it earlier.

Is Fred Flinstone going to get a job as stadium announcer?

Wonderwall wrote:Dear Mr Gates,

We at Manchester City are getting pelters for sponsoring ourselves. Therefore, could you please pull out of the Real Madrid Deal and sponsor my own team, Manchester City. I will continue with the Real Madrid Sponsorship and ensure you get more advertising than you pay for. In fact we will be the biggest thing on earth in 10 years with our Microsoft academy.

Cheers
Sheik Mansour

What makes that even funnier is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is one of the owners of MLS team Seattle Sounders and their shirt sponsor is Microsoft.

It's unlikely Coca Cola would sponsor a stadium. They have (had) a policy of sponsoring events (World Cup, etc) rather than teams or individuals. They would sell no Coke in Catalonia for example, much as if they sponsored the Scum I would never drink their products again (I still won't touch a Sharp product). Pepsi had the opposite approach, like with Michael Jackson before the rumours of his behaviour with monkeys and children.

Is the Etihad naming rights on a deal which grows year on year? If not is it being renogotiated? Needs to be.

The Maine Man wrote:It's unlikely Coca Cola would sponsor a stadium. They have (had) a policy of sponsoring events (World Cup, etc) rather than teams or individuals. They would sell no Coke in Catalonia for example, much as if they sponsored the Scum I would never drink their products again (I still won't touch a Sharp product). Pepsi had the opposite approach, like with Michael Jackson before the rumours of his behaviour with monkeys and children.

Is the Etihad naming rights on a deal which grows year on year? If not is it being renogotiated? Needs to be.

We need to do something clever to keep up with the biggest contracts but NOT be THE biggest.

I remember years ago, Alan Shearers new contract was not a sum/figure per annum, he signed a 5 year deal which stated he would pick up 95% of the biggest earner at the club, which I thought was quite clever as deals move on and prices go up, you dont have to renegotiate to stay up at the top end.

Maybe we could do the same sort of thing with the stadium sponsor, this way we would always be within what is deemed to be OK!

I don't think we were ever given a final figure for the Etihad deal, not for the campus anyway. It will just evolve with the club.

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't think we were ever given a final figure for the Etihad deal, not for the campus anyway. It will just evolve with the club.

Ted, I might have asked this before but if, in FFP accounting terms, all outgoing balances spent on the Campus are disregarded, by the same criterion would any sponsorship income received for it also be excluded ??

The Maine Man wrote:It's unlikely Coca Cola would sponsor a stadium. They have (had) a policy of sponsoring events (World Cup, etc) rather than teams or individuals.

Lebron James, Alexander Ovechkin, Michelle Kwan, Wayne Rooney all have endorsement deals with Coke. They have the naming right to a baseball stadium in the U.S.

Mikhail Chigorin wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't think we were ever given a final figure for the Etihad deal, not for the campus anyway. It will just evolve with the club.

Ted, I might have asked this before but if, in FFP accounting terms, all outgoing balances spent on the Campus are disregarded, by the same criterion would any sponsorship income received for it also be excluded ??

As far as I know; anything which carries the City brand counts toward ffp.

If we bought Barclays bank for instance it wouldn't count, but if we made it part of the City group with our logo on it, as far as I understand, it would.

Mikhail Chigorin wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:I don't think we were ever given a final figure for the Etihad deal, not for the campus anyway. It will just evolve with the club.

Ted, I might have asked this before but if, in FFP accounting terms, all outgoing balances spent on the Campus are disregarded, by the same criterion would any sponsorship income received for it also be excluded ??

No.

Real Madrid hopes for new-look Bernabeu hit by local court ruling

Real Madrid's project to remodel the Bernabeu has suffered a serious blow after a local court ruled that the development was outside the Spanish capital's planning regulations.

The remodelling, announced at the club's 2012 AGM, includes a futuristic new 'skin' design and a new commercial and hotel complex between the stadium and the nearby tree-lined Paseo de la Castellana.

Work had originally been due to begin in 2015, with the revamped stadium intended to be fully completed by 2017.

However, the project has been subject to a number of hitches including a European Commission investigation into potential illegal state aid in the form of a land-swap with the local council.

That swap involved the club exchanging a parcel of land outside the city centre for a smaller piece beside the existing stadium footprint.

Nevertheless, last October president Florentino Perez announced that the Abu Dhabi-based International Petroleum Investment Company were to provide funding for the project.

A month later, he was caught on camera suggesting the stadium could be renamed the Cepsa Bernabeu, with more recent reports suggesting the Abu Dhabi Bernabeu was another option.

But the plans now appear to be up in the air again after a Madrid court cancelled a 2012 change to the city's urban plan, which is necessary for the Bernabeu redevelopment to take place and has been challenged by local environmentalists.

In a statement on their official website, Madrid acknowledged that was a setback.

"The High Court of Madrid has overturned the agreement from Nov. 15 2012... which approved the specific modification of the Madrid General Development Plan, a decision that affects the Santiago Bernabeu," the statement said.

"Following this ruling, Real Madrid will work with the city council and the community of Madrid to address those aspects that require attention in order to make the Santiago Bernabeu reform project viable."

However, AS said it believed the project may now be off, writing: "Goodbye New Bernabeu."

http://www.espnfc.us/real-madrid/story/ ... urt-ruling