There’s apparently a proposal to rebrand* what’s currently the Nationwide League into the Coca-Cola League. I always thought Nationwide’s sponsorship was perfect – a really good name for a league that was nationwide. They also didn’t have dubious business practices in the third world. Just here, where it took 5 days to transfer money from a Nationwide Bank Account into a Nationwide Credit Card account. 5 days! Sheesh.
Obviously, there’s lotsa fun to be had if the rebranding works. Teams will get into the Premiership after going up from the Coke. You’ll go down from the Coke, you end up in the Conference. Also, coming up from the Coca-Cola might have negative connotations for the digestibility of the product. Puntastic times ahead.
But it’s gone further than that. Not content with being the Coca-Cola First Division (ie, the second tier of English football) the First Division is suggested to become the Coca-Cola Championship. But what to call Division two, which is the third tier of the game? Obviously, it can’t advertise that it’s the third tier, as that gives the game away that the Coco-cola championship is infact the second tier. So it’ll be the Coca-cola division one. And you know that makes division three, which used to be division four…
It’s utterly ludicrous, and based on the rather stupid belief that the premiership is on TV a lot and gets lots of fans because of slick marketing, rather than because it’s the pinnacle of the English game. It’s like making an estate pub in a provincial town all trendified, then expecting London style profits. And, given that all the leading clubs in the (current) division one all want to leave it, it’s like the lanlord directing the makeover of our estate pub has demanded the chnages or else they’ll leave, even though they’ve said they’ll leave anyway if a better pub becomes available. And they’ll spend all their time looking for that new pub as it happens. First the really big clubs threaten breakaways, and they do. Then the new rung of clubs who think they’re big do it. History repeating, most definitely as farce this time around. Whoever wins the Championship , I think the people behind this are the ones who top the Coke League (arf!)
What they should do is have the First division called ‘The Coke League’. It’s big, it’s the best in the stable, but it’s not as nice as champagne. The next tier down isn’t so good, but still OK. Maybe The Fanta League? (Fan-ta! Geddit?) Maybe a subset – Fanta A, Fanta B and finally, the Fanta C League. Division three, unloved except by it’s adherents who cling to it as a badge of devotion is obviously the Cherry Coke League – a very acquired taste. Finally, they find a really gritty lower league at serious grassroots level where fans bemoan the lack of handlebar moustaches and wonder whatever happened to that nice Lord Kinnaird, and that becomes the Classic Coke League. Job done**
* Here is a great brand for the Football League. It’s a League. For Football Clubs. See where I’m headed here?
** Note to Coke executives / marketeers in general – Suggested League names are a big joke and NOT SERIOUS. But if you think they’re quite good, they are copyrighted by me