Two weeks ago, the stadium management's Jacques Grobbelaar gave an indication of its about-turn when he chatted to me on my radio media and marketing show, Media@SAfm. Grobbelaar said it had been narrowed down to Soccer City and the Calabash. Up to that point - the stadium management had even advertised the upcoming Tri-Nations test between the Boks and the All Blacks to be played at the "National Stadium".
FNB is set to revert to the original FNB Stadium; that is its right. However, it'll score higher in the goodwill brand stakes by voluntarily bringing in Soccer City to the stadium title and linking it to the bank.
Whoever thought the National Stadium was a suitable name for a sports venue?
The "national stadium" is a no-no for drumming up national fervour. It is bland, it's more Idi Amin than Siphiwe Tshabalala, it is flat and it is an insult to the wonderful legacy that Soccer City has left us, post-2010.
Soccer City played host to the opening game, the final and that dramatic Ghanaian penalty shootout loss to Uruguay .Having worked so hard to build the brand, it is suicidal to kill one of the great symbols of the world cup.
Just imagine this, a Ghanaian fan - here for the match against Bafana - sets his GPS to find Soccer City, only to get a "does not exist" response. "No Soccer City, no come back," he's bound to say as he reflects that that the scene of the world cup's greatest drama is 'seen' no more"
Maybe it's an academic discussion, now that FNB has won the day, but the argument that you cannot add "soccer" to the name of a stadium with designs on hosting rugby internationals and top billing music festivals just does not hold.
In fact, stadiums thrive on anomalous names: Eden Garden is the name given to India's largest cricket stadium; Derby County won the English football league title by playing its home games at the Baseball Ground; and rugby's Ellis Park has played host to many great soccer games, including that terrific Confederations Cup Final comeback win for Brazil. Even Liverpool's famous Kop End is named after a battleground in the South African Anglo-Boer War.
So as far as sport goes - nostalgia is everything and anything is better than the national stadium. It's not a coincidence then that even the NSM and FNB preferred going head-to-head in their winner-takes-all battle at the "High Court" rather than the daft "National Stadium".
