LAHORE: Pakistan Cricket Board‘s chairman Ramiz Raja has announced that the iconic Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore will be renamed for sponsorship reasons.
The reason behind the name change is purely commercial and carries no political undertones. The stadium has been called by its current name for 50 years after it was named in honor of former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.
Ramiz Raja said that the cricket board is in advanced negotiations with a number of sponsors one of whom will win the right to rename the stadium as per their choice. The National Stadium in Karachi as well as other major cricket stadiums across the country will also potentially be renamed once sponsors are lined up.
“We acquired the services of YouGov to estimate the brand worth of our stadia, and how much sponsorship deals would be worth,” Ramiz said. “That’s not just true of the Gaddafi Stadium, but also the NSK and others. We’ve been working towards this for a while, and the response from sponsors has been satisfactory. Once we finalize a deal [for Lahore], the name Gaddafi will go completely, with a sponsor’s name replacing it.”
The stadium was named Lahore Stadium upon its inception in 1959 but was renamed in 1974 after the former Libyan president gave a speech in Lahore during the OIC conference.n The change in name will also mean the end for one of the quirkiest venue names in the cricket world. The stadium was originally named Lahore Stadium when it was built in 1959.
Over time, the stadium’s name has evolved beyond the name of the politician that inspired it, and associations between the stadium and the president have long since been decoupled.
When Gaddafi was ousted from power, there were strong suggestions Pakistan cricket might look to distance its most famous stadium from him, but that movement gradually fell away.
