It was announced yesterday that Spanish club Getafe would be purchased by a group based out of Dubai, theoretically putting an end to the club's ongoing financial struggles.
The news on its own is nothing out of the ordinary, as Middle Eastern businessmen have been gobbling up European football clubs with voracity in recent times, for the most part injecting cash-strapped teams with a dose of much-needed funds to be able to keep up with the Joneses of the club soccer world.
This transaction is different than, say, Manchester City's takeover, in that the traditions of the club are being tweaked. The club will put an addendum smack dab in the middle of its name, and will henceforth be known to the world as Getafe Team Dubai Club de Fútbol.
That's just awful.
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The first question that came to my mind when I saw the new name was, "what the hell does Dubai have to do with Getafe?" The obvious answer is that the owners are from there, and will presumably pour obscene amounts of cash into the team.
Fair enough.
But my counterargument to that is if any potential owner calls himself enough of a football fan that he is willing to blow through billions of dollars just to be a part of the game at the highest levels - and that's essentially what's going to happen here, no one makes money in these kinds of deals any more - then he should respect the traditions of the club, and the region it's in, to keep the name as is.
What's the point of buying a (relatively) prestigious club in La Liga if the first thing you do is shit on its most visible identifier just to appease your own massive ego?
Hell, they could have at least used a Spanish term instead of the anglicized "Team Dubai." And perhaps they could, nay should, have made the "Getafe" part of the logo the bigger of the two?
Teams have gone through name changes before, of course, but most of those were generally from mergers of clubs within the same area. The lion's share of those took place decades ago. How often do clubs merge nowadays?
Getafe Team Dubai Club de Fútbol just reeks of the "Red Bull-fication" of the modern game, in which a wealthy benefactor comes in, buys an established side, and makes a mockery of it by giving it a name that has zero to do with anything but the ownership itself.
And that sucks.