Money can buy a lot of things and it did help Cepsa, a Spanish energy company, to be part of the new name for a historic stadium. Rumor has it that Real Madrid’s home will soon be either “Abu Dhabi Bernabeu”or "Cepsa Bernabeu".
The club with the most Champions League titles (10), agreed to sell the naming rights for £15m a year. Companies like Coca-Cola and Microsoft also showed interest in the naming process.
Cepsa is owned by the IPIC (International Petroleum Investment Company), which belongs to the Abu Dhabi Government. It entered a financial partnership with Madrid at the end of last October. The deal is due to last 20 years and has given them an advantage on the naming rights according to Diario AS.
It is considered the club's most lucrative deal in its 113-year history. Their current stadium was opened in 1947 in a game Los Blancos won 3-1 over OS Beleneses. It has a capacity for 81,044 spectators. After the remodeling process is completed, it should hold space for 90,000 fans.
The stadium was originally called New Chamartín. It was in 1955 that it changed to its current "Santiago Bernabeu" name, honoring a chairman of the club with the same name.
The club must get legal approval to go through with the project that has already seen a green light from the Madrid City Council. If the current project doesn't stall for too long, Florentino Perez, president of Real Madrid, hopes that by 2017 their new home will be unveiled.
This would be the second soccer stadium that the United Arab Emirates giant gets its hands on, with the first one being Manchester City. Changing the name of a historical venue will most likely cause anger among some fans.
If there is something Real Madrid is good at, it is doing business. In 2013-14, with £459.4m, they retained their crown as the world’s richest club in terms of revenue.
WATCH: How Real Madrid's new home should look like in a few years
