The Naming Rights Thread

[Ashley1974]

ok, playing Devil's Advocate here:

Why is there no such fuss over Arsenal's stadium being sponsored by Emirates Airlines? Is the United Arab Emirates a much better example of a country than Qatar?

 

[Stamford]

Is the UK govt looking to sponsor our football club?

I hope not. That would be me done.

 

[piedpiper]

No doubt there is some xenophobic sentiment but we can't ignore the abuses from these regimes either. Two things can be true.

Only thing I would say is this country isn't exactly blessed with a wonderful treatment of people around the world

Agree you get it in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, America too....mistreatment of people based on ethnicity/ country of origin. There's differing degrees of mistreatment I'm certain and you right it can't be ignored.... but is the brand Qatar Airways mistreating it's workers....doubtful on that score...I'm isolating the Airways brand from the state...same way we isolate BA from Britain etc etc.

 

[Annabel]

So, how do we pronounce Qatar?

Personally I’ll pronounce it “whyte haart layne”

 

[Saoirse]

ok, playing Devil's Advocate here:

Why is there no such fuss over Arsenal's stadium being sponsored by Emirates Airlines? Is the United Arab Emirates a much better example of a country that Qatar?

I'd probably say a) if there was, we wouldn't have followed it so closely - it may have played out on Arsenal forums we never visit, b) these issues have thankfully become more prominent in the last 15 years since they opened, c) the enslavement and death of World Cup workers adds an extra sense of evil.

 

[Saoirse]

Agree you get it in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, America too....mistreatment of people based on ethnicity/ country of origin. There's differing degrees of mistreatment I'm certain and you right it can't be ignored.... but is the brand Qatar Airways mistreating it's workers....doubtful on that score...I'm isolating the Airways brand from the state...same way we isolate BA from Britain etc etc.

But they are literally owned by the state. That's the big difference here. BA is a private company that happens to have British in its name.

 

[piedpiper]

If "their logo is red" and "they kill thousands and inflict misery on millions" are equal on your ""moral compass"", I really don't know what to say tbh

I'll sleep easy....I don't get outraged for meaningless stuff.

 

[stov]

Nope same here; I'm not watching the qualifiers for it either.

I'd have hoped we'd avoid some tie in with sports washing TBH but then again we could get another deal and it would be with some other big corporation that avoids paying its taxes in the UK; plus well the obvious hypocritical part would be supporting a club who's owners are setup in the Bahamas for "reasons". Plus we have the whole NFL thing which isn't exactly squeaky pure as driven snow either.

I just really hope it's not a deal with the Saudi's because they're throwing a lot of money at all manner of sports at the moment.

A conscience is nice and if we were operating in normal times where covid didn't happen maybe we could afford to be more choosey.
My only hope is if we're going down this cornerstone route whereby it'll still officially be "The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium" but we have a few big sponsors rather than just one huge one. So at least it's not so in your face.

Much like everything else in these times we may need to accept the necessary evil that sadly comes with modern football.

Our kit partner* is tied up for a good while and both shirt sponsorships too so it's really only Stadium and training ground available afaik.
I forget how long our loan currently is but IIRC the interest on it is about £13-15 million a year (it might be less than that I'm not really sure what occurred when we paid back that BOE loan and juggled some shares about)

*Nike may still be using sweatshops for all I know. Again would show another slice of hypocrisy when I buy my nephew a new shirt, then we have tie ins with Monster energy, gambling companies <spits> etc.

It's hard to avoid hypocrisy given the amount of shit in the world. Apple for example has issues with the mining of minerals used in its products or sweat shops as you said. .But I think we can draw the line at welcoming Qatar as a sponsor.

 

[stov]

I'd probably say a) if there was, we wouldn't have followed it so closely - it may have played out on Arsenal forums we never visit, b) these issues have thankfully become more prominent in the last 15 years since they opened, c) the enslavement and death of World Cup workers adds an extra sense of evil.

There's definitely more scrutiny, people generally care more and the world cup workers deaths have a particular resonance with some football fans meaning there is more focus on Qatar.

 

[Amo]

I agree with most on here. You cannot ignore Qatar’s human rights allegations of the recent years.

But most of would happily take an American business. Despite the fairly evident deep seated racism within the police force, the 800 military bases around the world, the killings of thousands of innocents with drone attacks.

It’s all well and good to point the finger at Qatar but we are no better and if anything have done much worse to the world in recent and past times. Every country has its evils albeit Qatar’s are more in the forefront.

When, in 2221, Qatar is still grappling with the institutional racism stemming from its historical embrace of slavery two centuries prior, and when descendents of those workers grapple with systemic discrimination instead of being literal slaves that have to sleep in the hallway of their country's Doha embassy for months because they're refused exit visas by their owners and are now criminals, I'll extend the same critiques of America today towards them.

Until then, your outrageous conflation of those two things is typical of the do-gooder liberal racism those of us who aren't guilt-ridden Western white folks have to face nearly every day when our experiences of actually living under these regimes is ignored and belittled by trite comparisons with the USA of all places.

You may not realise it, but telling people the "USA is just as bad as you have it" isn't just spectacularly ignorant, it's actually cruel. Tell that to someone so desperate as to go knee-deep into debt getting to Qatar/UAE, chasing a non-existent salaried position only to be greeted with unpaid/poorly paid manual labour on billion-dollar record-breaking high-rises. Tell them America is just as bad. Tell them they shouldn't bother going there.

 

[stov]

When, in 2221, Qatar is still grappling with the institutional racism stemming from its historical embrace of slavery two centuries prior, and when descendents of those workers grapple with systemic discrimination instead of being literal slaves that have to sleep in the hallway of their country's Doha embassy for months because they're refused exit visas by their owners and are now criminals, I'll extend the same critiques of America today towards them.

Until then, your outrageous conflation of those two things is typical of the do-gooder liberal racism those of us who aren't guilt-ridden Western white folks have to face nearly every day when our experiences of actually living under these regimes is ignored and belittled by trite comparisons with the USA of all places.

You may not realise it, but telling people the "USA is just as bad as you have it" isn't just spectacularly ignorant, it's actually cruel. Tell that to someone so desperate as to go knee-deep into debt getting to Qatar/UAE, chasing a non-existent salaried position only to be greeted with unpaid/poorly paid manual labour on billion-dollar record-breaking high-rises. Tell them America is just as bad. Tell them they shouldn't bother going there.

But we will get lots of money to buy players and win things...

 

[Tucker]

The false equivalences in here are ludicrous “Joe Lewis isn’t exactly whiter than white.”

No shit. But he’s not an actual dictator with the blood of thousands on his hands is he.

 

[NayimFTHL]

Hypocrites everywhere. Just a lot of anti-arab sentiment unfortunately which is a result of islamophobia.

 

[Tucker]

Hypocrites everywhere. Just a lot of anti-arab sentiment unfortunately which is a result of islamophobia.

Bullshit. No one who’s posted anything negative about this potential sponsorship in here has said anything Islamophobic. If you think anyone’s criticisms of the Qatari regime are wrong, by all means explain why.

 

[thekneaf]

ok, playing Devil's Advocate here:

Why is there no such fuss over Arsenal's stadium being sponsored by Emirates Airlines? Is the United Arab Emirates a much better example of a country that Qatar?

Because we already hate arsenal, don't need extra reasons?

 

[stov]

Hypocrites everywhere. Just a lot of anti-arab sentiment unfortunately which is a result of islamophobia.

I am Muslim you plonker. Get your head out of the ground and actually look at the world around you.

 

[thekneaf]

Hypocrites everywhere. Just a lot of anti-arab sentiment unfortunately which is a result of islamophobia.

You disliked my comment suggesting that amazon's issues could be resolved with robust legislation - which is a fact.

Qatar are doing some very specific things that are objectionable as a state. It's perfectly fine to criticise them and not want to be associated. This has nothing to do with their generosity and I'm sure they'd actually be great for us as a club.

I would counter your point by saying that I really wouldn't want Trump either as a sponsor, or the US or British government.

Besoz is different as he plays within the rule book, but the rules just haven't kept up. Nothing about his actions suggest he would flatly ignore labor laws, he'll just lobby hard to avoid them.

This is all quite complicated, but something we are all allowed to discuss like adults.

 

[CockOnBall]

The stadium has remained nameless for the best part of 2 years, that’s around 30/40m in lost revenue. Sometimes I feel chasing such high deals is at the detriment of the club and more serves Levy’s ego. We shall see.

 

[NayimFTHL]

I am Muslim you plonker. Get your head out of the ground and actually look at the world around you.

Of course you are mate lol

 

[stov]

Of course you are mate lol

wow, what a dick.