Players at a West Australian country football club are prepared to "sell their souls" with a fundraiser giving a punter — potentially anywhere in Australia — the chance to name their home ground.
Albany-based Railways Football Club is holding a raffle where the top prize will be naming rights for their soon-to-be redeveloped home ground.
Club president Wayne Stubber said there would be no line they wouldn't cross for the winner, whose choice of name would remain in place for the full 2025 season.
"Normally with something like this you would offer it to a business," Mr Stubber said.
"But what we're doing is just letting anybody have the opportunity to put their nickname up there, or their name, or their dog, or whatever.
"It might be their favourite beer or anything like that."
Loading...Creative approach
Construction is underway on the new clubhouse, with the project including new changing rooms and features to make the building accessible to all, at a cost of about $2 million.
"We're hoping to create something for the entire community for the next 50 years, inclusive to everybody, of all ages, sex, race and abilities, and we thought we would take a chance here," Mr Stubber said.
With $1.5 million already raised, he said some creativity was in order to bring in the last $500,000.
"We're hoping that might generate some interest," he said.
"Imagine someone sitting in the pub in Victoria and tell his mate that he's actually got a football pavilion in Western Australia named after him."
Nervous wait on name
Mr Stubber said the club was keen to see the creativity of the winner, and willing to face the risk it could end up with a completely ridiculous title.
"We're pretty nervous, but we're pretty excited as well," he said.
"If it gets some traction and and becomes really popular, it's something we might do on an annual basis."
That includes the risk that a rival side wins those naming rights.
"That's just what we've got to live with," Mr Stubber said.
"If Royals from across the road were to win the raffle and wanted to name it Royal Stadium or something like that, we've just got to suck that up.
"We've actually said we're selling our soul."
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