English Championship football club Queens Park Rangers has announced that its home stadium will once again be known as Loftus Road after a sponsorship deal with The Kiyan Prince Foundation came to an end.
QPR’s stadium has been officially known as The Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium since the start of the 2019-20 season. The foundation’s three-year deal with the London club concluded at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
The foundation was set up in memory of Kiyan Prince, a former QPR academy player who was stabbed to death outside his school when breaking up a fight on May 18, 2006, when he was just 15. His father Mark set up the charity to educate young people on the consequences of knife crime.
The foundation was selected as Loftus Road’s naming-rights partner after QPR invited fans to nominate a charity to sponsor the stadium. Of the five nominated charities, The Kiyan Prince Foundation received more than 63% of the overall votes.
Following the conclusion of the deal, Mark Prince said: “My family and I, including all of us at KPF, would like to thank everyone involved at Queens Park Rangers, including the supporters, for honouring Kiyan and the work that The Kiyan Prince Foundation is doing.
“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 organisation, 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.
“Giving young people the opportunity to come to the KPF Stadium and watch a live game for the first time, being able to rent a nine-seater vehicle from club sponsors VRS, working together on community initiatives and fundraising with players’ involvement have all helped the foundation to grow.
“COVID restrictions brought challenges in terms of generating monetary gain through events for KPF but we have built an ongoing lasting relationship with the club. Even though the naming rights’ timeframe has officially come to an end and it is returning to Loftus Road, we look forward to future plans with the club and having a continued impact on young people, resulting in reduced knife crime and anti-social behaviour.”
QPR chief executive Lee Hoos added: “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. That campaign was voted as Community Project of the Year at the London Football Awards recently and was an incredible achievement by all involved.
“It has been a privilege to work so closely with Mark and his team but this isn’t the end of our relationship. We will continue to support The KPF in the future and will be proud to do so.”
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