Zenit St Petersburg reportedly offered £5.7m to change name to 'Zenit Burger King'
Russian football team Zenit St Petersburg have reportedly rejected a £5.73m offer from Burger King to change their name to ‘Zenit Burger King’.
Burger King
According to reports from Russia, the fast food chain approached the club with the naming rights deal at the beginning of the week, but despite the lucrative offer the team said no.
Football writer Stefano Conforti revealed the news on Twitter posting a picture of the letter Burger King has sent to the club.
Burger King has offered around 500M roubles to rename Zenit to Zenit-Burger King. That's crazy! pic.twitter.com/0MkSD1cOTG
— Stefano Conforti (@confortistefano) September 2, 2016
Written in Russian the letter states Burger King wants to purchase the naming rights for the club for 500m roubles, and states any deal would need to be approved by the Russian Football Union (RFS) before going ahead. The club is yet to confirm if the letter is real.
Lucrative deals sponsorship deals are par for the course in football, in 2009 German Bundesliga team RB Leipzig, who are owned by Red Bull, weren’t allowed to go under the name Red Bull Leipzig. However, in Austria and the US the brand have two teams Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls.
Manchester City, Arsenal and Bayern Munich are amongst the clubs who have sold their stadium naming rights to brands including Etihad, Emirates and Allianz.