By Mitch Phillips
LONDON (Reuters) – RFU boss Bill Sweeney has defended the decision to rebrand Twickenham as the “Allianz Stadium” in a 10-year, 100 million pounds ($130.81 million) deal, saying the bigger question was why they did not do it earlier.
The national rugby stadiums of Wales, Ireland and Scotland are now branded with commercial names, as are many southern hemisphere stadiums, and Twickenham, England’s home since 1910, has followed suit with changeover of signage already underway.
“I think it’s really encouraging for the game when you have a company like them (German insurance group Allianz) investing in rugby union in England,” RFU CEO Sweeney told journalists following last month’s announcement of the rebranding plans.
“They have branding naming rights across seven other stadiums around the world, they are passionate about rugby from the top down, they’ve got experience in stadium redevelopment so that helps us for our (development) plans for Twickenham 2027 and they are providing a significant investment over a multi-year period which is coming into the game.
“They’ve been very clear from the outset that they want to see a certain amount of that activity targeted at the community game.”
Asked if the RFU “had to do it” given the money involved, Sweeney said: “You wouldn’t want to walk away from a very significant investment with a partner which shares similar values and similar passions for the game.
“The question is ‘why didn’t we do it earlier? Why haven’t we had a naming-rights partner sooner?’ But it’s a really good deal, good for the game.
“They’re doing it for the right reasons – the vast majority of the people we interact with understand it’s the right deal for the game. You’ll get certain resistance for traditional reasons, that’s wholly understandable, and there’ll be a period of time where it takes time to adjust.”
Twickenham, named after the area of London in which it was built in 1907, held its first rugby international in 1910 when England hosted Wales. It has a capacity of 82,000.
($1 = 0.7645 pounds)
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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