Iconic stadiums named after location

With regard to the naming of the new sports stadium, I am puzzled as to why there appears to be an insistence on it being named after someone, either a political or, as suggested by Mr Ronald Lee Yew Kee ("Name Sports Hub venues after athletes"; last Wednesday), a sporting hero.

With the greatest respect to Singapore's best athletes who have proved themselves beyond doubt regionally, Singapore has never produced a truly international sporting great. There is no Singaporean Pele, Roger Federer, Michael Phelps, Sachin Tendulkar or Liu Xiang, and to name the stadium after one of Singapore's finest would only elicit from international visitors (and many locals too) a monosyllabic "Who?"

As for Mr Ng Qi Siang's suggestion of "The United People Stadium" ("Stadium's name should reflect nation's unity"; last Wednesday), this sounds like the name of an arena in Cold War Eastern Europe, whose irony indicates anything but.

The fact is that many of the world's most iconic sporting arenas are named simply after their locations: Wembley Stadium, Wimbledon, Ascot, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Madison Square Gardens in New York and the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, to name but a few.

At the risk of sounding obvious and uncontroversial, might I humbly suggest "Kallang Stadium".

Gareth Pearson

Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.