The Championship club Queens Park Rangers F.C. (UK) home ground name – the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium – will revert to Loftus Road for the 2022-2023 seasons.
The above decision has been taken after a sponsorship deal with The Kiyan Prince Foundation came to an end.
The ‘BBC Sport’ stated that in 2019, the club gifted the naming rights of the ground to a charity, with fans voting for the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium.
The Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is an English professional football club based in Shepherd’s Bush, West London (UK). The club currently competes in the English Football League (EFL) Championship, the second tier of English football.
The 18,439-capacity Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium is an all-seater football stadium in White City, London, England (UK), which is home to Queens Park Rangers F.C. In 1981, it became the first stadium in British professional football to have an artificial pitch of Omniturf installed.
The ‘BBC Sport’ further stated that Kiyan Prince was a member of QPR’s youth academy, who was stabbed to death in May 2006 when he was 15-years-old.
QPR Chief Executive Lee Hoos said the club would “continue to support” the foundation in the future.
The foundation was set up by Kiyan’s father Mark Prince to educate young people about the consequences of knife crime.
Added Hoos, “Winning the votes for the naming rights of Loftus Road Stadium has brought many benefits to not only the KPF charity but people in and around West London. As an organization, we have been able to collaborate with QPR to deliver motivational talks at schools in the area, and the naming rights brought much more attention to the work we are doing.”
In 2021, Kiyan was posthumously added to the FIFA gaming platform. He was listed as a QPR squad member for the 2021-2022 seasons to mark the 15th anniversary of his death.
Continued Hoos, “It was always felt that a natural ceiling would be reached in terms of the impact we could have on the foundation through the exposure it would garner from the stadium rename. There has been some incredible coverage and we are very proud as a club to have helped Kiyan become the first posthumous addition to the FIFA gaming platform.”
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