By Chris Wright
Granted, we’ve had a few false starts when it comes to Real Madrid renaming their ‘umble abode, but the latest word on the wire is that Los Blancos could soon be playing their home games at the “Abu Dhabi Bernabeu”.
According to Spanish paper AS, Real’s president Florentino Perez has been caught on camera admitting to a member of the regional government that the club’s stadium will be called whatever the Abu Dhabi investment group IPIC (International Petroleum Investment Company) want it to be called once they flood the place with their endless rivers of petrodollars.
Madrid signed a massive deal with IPIC (who own Spanish petrol company Cepsa) in October of last year to help them raise the funds needed to redevelop the Bernabeu, with Perez once again getting himself caught nattering away the following month when television cameras filmed him telling Madrid’s local government official for Sport and Education that “we’ll call it IPIC Bernabeu or whatever they want […] or Cepsa Bernabeu.”
AS are now reporting that IPIC and Cepsa have both been dropped as potential names, with “the Abu Dhabi Bernabeu” now thought to be the preferred option – though whether or not that is the final decision remains to be seen.
