As if proof were needed that commercialism is rampant in football these days, Zenit St. Petersburg have supposedly been offered millions of dollars to officially change their team name.
**UPDATE: Pies’ Russian sources are telling us that this story is actually a joke and the letter below is an elaborate hoax. We’ll keep you posted.**
Burger King have reportedly chucked roughly £5.5million at Zenit to purchase the naming rights of the club and alter their name to “Zenit Burger King”.
The news was broken by Artur Petrosyan, the editor-in-chief of Sport-Express.ru…
Zenit have received a €6.8-million offer from @BurgerKing to change team’s name to “Zenit Burger King”.
— Artur Petrosyan (@arturpetrosyan) September 2, 2016
Russian journalists then circulated a scan of the letter — that it should be noted is yet to be verified as genuine — but appears to show Burger King offering Zenit the fee of 500m roubles to buy their very soul…
So this is what it’s come to, eh? What next, KFC FC?
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that Burger King have had dalliances with the world of professional football, foisting this novelty kit on Getafe back in 2010…