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February 2, 2007
Black leaders erupt over Barclays' sports deal
Belfast Telegraph
By Stephen Foley
The Barclays naming-rights deal brouhaha has now reached beyond The Pond:
When Barclays agreed to pay more than $300m (£152m) to get its name on a new basketball stadium in Brooklyn, it thought it had pulled off one of the most exciting marketing coups in American sport.
But just a few weeks on, the British bank is battling to prevent a public relations disaster, as black leaders demand the deal be scrapped because of Barclays' historic support for the apartheid regime in South Africa and what they believe are profits it made from slavery.
Barclays says the allegations about its links to the 18th-century slave trade are "simply not true" - based on an inaccurate book written 60 years ago - and it is now mired in an exchange of historical documents with opponents.
Politicians, churchmen and newspaper columnists say it would be an insult to black residents to name the complex the Barclays Centre, as planned.
NoLandGrab: Barclays's primary cultural concession has been to use the correct spelling of "Centre".
Posted by lumi at February 2, 2007 10:28 AM