Footy club holds Australia’s most bizarre and risky fundraiser – and the results could be disastrous

A Western Australian football club is taking a very risky approach to fundraising by raffling off the chance to name its home ground – and they don’t care how bizarre the winner’s choice is.

The Railways Football Club in Albany, in the state’s far south, is building a new clubhouse as part of a $2 million redevelopment. To get the job done, they need $500,000.

Now they’re giving everyone in Australia the chance to choose the name of their football field for 12 months and they don’t care what the outcome is.

“Normally you would offer something like this to a corporate,” club chairman Wayne Stubber told the ABC.

“But what we’re doing here is we’re giving everyone the opportunity to put their nickname, their name, their dog or whatever, out there.

‘It could be their favourite beer or something like that… Imagine someone sitting in the pub in Victoria and telling their mate that there’s a football pavilion in Western Australia named after them.

“We’re quite nervous, but also quite excited.

The club are redeveloping their ground but work has stalled and the club are desperately seeking $500,000 to complete the job (pictured)

“If it gets some attention and becomes really popular, maybe we can do this annually.”

When asked what the club would do if a rival team from the Great Southern Football League won the lottery and named the stadium after their team, Stubber replied: ‘We’ll have to live with that.

‘If the Royals across the street won the lottery and wanted to call it Royal Stadium or something, we’d just have to swallow it.

“We basically said we were selling our souls.”

Do you want to name the club after your cat? Or your favorite beer brand? This is your big chance, and tickets are only $25 each

Club chairman Wayne Stubber says the club will keep its promise to adopt the name the winner chooses – even if the winner is a rival football team (Photo: Railways celebrate a win)

The Railways lottery brings back memories of a British competition to name a polar research vessel (pictured), which was eventually named ‘Boaty McBoatface’ in 2016.

The redevelopment will see the clubhouse completely refurbished with new changing rooms, but the railway ran out of money before the job could be completed and they are now stuck in what they describe as a ‘rusty and mouldy’ building which is partly a construction site.

“Simply put, we are in trouble without a paddle,” the club said in a statement. slick video made to promote the lottery.

The winner of the lottery – what you can participate in here for $25 per ticket – also get round-trip airfare for two to watch a game of their choice at the newly named venue.

The railways’ brave decision to hand over naming rights to ordinary Australians is reminiscent of what happened when the UK’s National Environment Research Council gave the public the chance to name its polar research vessel in 2016.

‘Boaty McBoatface’ received almost 125,000 votes, more than four times as many as the runner-up.