Donovan says naming stadium across the globe after Pele a ‘ridiculous idea’

By Morissa Lindsay

With FIFA’s President Gianni Infantino putting member football associations on notice that they will be asked to name a stadium after the late legendary Brazilian Pele, all eyes will be on the Barbados Football Association (BFA) to see if it will accede to the request.

The new and expansive BFA headquarters at Wildey, constructed through the FIFA Forward funding programme, is the only home of football in Barbados and some in the football fraternity are eager to find out whether the BFA led by president Randy Harris will name the facility after outstanding Barbadian players as previously promised, or go with FIFA’s suggestion.

Having failed to name the recently concluded World Cup in the ailing Pele’s honour, long-standing BFA administrator Adrian Donovan is once again chiding FIFA for asking each member country to name a stadium after the global icon who was buried today.

Donovan described FIFA’s latest request as a “goof” which was announced by President Infantino who said while in Santos to pay his final respects to Pele, that they will be asking all footballing nations in the world to name one of their stadiums after the great man who died last week at the age of 82.

“We need to make sure that we in the world of football remember Pele forever, of course we pay tribute to him by being here, we pay tribute to him by asking all the federations to pay a minute of silence and tribute to Pele,” Infantino said.

Infantino added: “But we’re also going to ask every country in the world to name one of their football stadiums with the name of Pele. Because in 50 years in 100 years from now when children are asking, ‘who was Pele?’ Well, they need to remember him all over the world in a place where you score goals, where you feel emotions… We need to make sure this happens.”

However, Donovan explained that this is a matter for further discussion bearing in mind that these football countries have icons after which they would like to name their respective stadiums and listed the likes of Argentina with Diego Maradona and Germany with Franz Beckenbauer, to name a few.

“We must remember that we are talking about over 211 affiliated football countries to FIFA and many of them have national icons that are highly respected in their respective countries. So, can you ask Argentina to name a stadium after Pele when they have Maradona (Diego) or Germany with Franz Beckenbauer? And the list goes on…,” Donovan stated.

The highly respected football administrator also questioned the repercussions for member countries who depend heavily on FIFA for funding. “More importantly, FIFA dictates how their monies are to be spent, they have a number of programmes across the globe that assist footballing nations through many years but especially with finance.

“Countries like the Caribbean all depend on FIFA for finances or it would not exist today. Bearing that in mind, is it possible then that if a country refuses to follow the request of FIFA that their financial assistance may be withheld? This has happened before by the former FIFA committees; this is nothing new. But to come at this time with this ridiculous idea, one cannot imagine what those men in Zürich were really thinking about.”

While not in favour of this latest idea by Infantino, Donovan made a few suggestions including having a statue of Pele erected at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.

“They could unveil a statue of Pele at the FIFA headquarters in conjunction with a game to be played between the best World Cup players from Europe against the best players from South America. These are just some other things that they could think about. But asking countries to name one of their stadiums after Pele is asking a lot. So, it would mean then that the BFA are going to be tasked with naming the Wildey complex after Pele as this is the only dedicated football stadium we have in Barbados.

“Does it mean that the BFA would have to shelve their plans as they have already discussed, naming it after players who have represented Barbados? That is a major issue to be discussed. FIFA is the world governing body for football and they are responsible for developing the sport across the globe and I must congratulate the president (Infantino) who when seeking election to high office campaigned and promised the Caribbean countries more funding. He kept his word and he must be congratulated. But they dropped the ball again, the World Cup should have been called the Pele Cup, end of story.”

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb