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Last update - 02:31 13/09/2008
N.Y. football teams end talks with company with Nazi ties over naming rights
By Ariel Zilber, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press
Tags: New York Jets, Allianz 

The New York Giants and New York Jets ended naming-rights talks with a German insurance company that once had ties to the Nazis.

Allianz had been looking to buy naming rights to the stadium being built in northern New Jersey for the two National Football League franchises.

The move was criticized by Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors. The company says it has atoned for its history and should not be judged by its World War II record.
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Allianz officials confirmed that talks have ended. Discussions are continuing with other potential partners for naming rights.

"The New York Giants and the New York Jets heard the concerns of their fans and others and made the right decision to end negotiations with Allianz for the naming rights of their new stadium," Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman said on Friday.

"The decision shows sensitivity to the fact that the greater New York area is home to a large number of Holocaust survivors and their families and World War II veterans, who live with the painful memories of that time."

Jewish football fans in New York were furious over local media reports this week that the Jets and Giants were close to granting naming rights for their new stadium to Allianz, a German company that maintained intimate ties with the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

According to Tuesday's New York Times, the teams negotiated with Allianz, a corporation based in Munich that had insured equipment and personnel at various concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau. An Allianz executive, Kurt Schmitt, was also appointed as Adolf Hitler's economic minister.

Reports in New York indicate that Allianz was prepared to pay the teams upwards of $20 to $30 million per year for the naming rights to the brand new football stadium that the clubs are jointly building in the New Jersey Meadowlands.

Jets and Giants officials had to wage a delicate public relations campaign to temper the backlash, particularly since a considerable portion of the teams' fan base is Jewish. This week, the back page of the mass circulation tabloid New York Daily News showed a picture of the owners of the football team with the headline "SHAMING RIGHTS" superimposed on the image.

"I am very upset," Earnest Michel, a Holocaust survivor, told the Daily News on Wednesday. "I would find the connection of naming the stadium in the name of a German insurance company a very, very serious act and that we as survivors would take exception to."

"It would be an insult," Foxman told the Daily News. "It's putting [the Allianz] name in lights for generations to come."

Allianz sought to defuse the criticism by pointing to the millions of dollars in restitution payments it has made to Holocaust survivors. The company says it has sought to redress the crimes it committed during the rule of the Third Reich, and the owners of the Jets and Giants reportedly vetted the firm and came away satisfied with its sincerity in making amends.

The Daily News quoted one prominent U.S. rabbi as supporting the deal, saying it is time to let bygones be bygones despite the raw sensitivity of the issue.

"I have found Allianz to be receptive, to be sensitive and a friend of the Jewish people today," Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum of the North American Board of Rabbis said. "We need not live in the past.
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  1.   Can`t do 20:31  |  Mark B. 11/09/08
  2.   Don`t disturb the ny`s jews gravy eaters among themselves 21:12  |  who wants 2 no 11/09/08
  3.   Allianz Arena 21:27  |  Axel 11/09/08
  4.   NY Football teams sell naming rights 21:50  |  M.GERALD FRIED 11/09/08
  5.   Naming Rights 22:01  |  Leor 11/09/08
  6.   Axel might be right 22:27  |  Markus 11/09/08
  7.   Born to kvetch 23:09  |  Adrian 11/09/08
  8.   Oh stop whining about everybody and everything! 23:11  |  mike 11/09/08
  9.   # 6 "any amount they gave is not enough" 23:12  |  Axel 11/09/08
  10.   Mike 23:54  |  M.GERALD FRIED 11/09/08
  11.   6 23:55  |  no haaretz subscribe 11/09/08
  12.   Naming Rights 00:11  |  Geoff 12/09/08
  13.   Mike, how convenient, isn`t it? 00:26  |  W 12/09/08
  14.   THIS IS SILLY! 00:28  |  Brant 12/09/08
  15.   What`s wrong with a little genocide, anyway? Right Mike? Axel? 00:31  |  JP 12/09/08
  16.   nazi ties 00:47  |  Shmuelshachor 12/09/08
  17.   # 14 jp 01:01  |  Axel 12/09/08
  18.   axel 01:24  |  M.GERALD FRIED 12/09/08
  19.   Astrodome Renamed Too 01:33  |  Mark of Lewiston 12/09/08
  20.   Allianz, IBM and Naming Rights 01:37  |  Tex 12/09/08
  21.   # 10 gerald 01:39  |  Axel 12/09/08
  22.   Stateless Mike 01:41  |  Tex 12/09/08
  23.   Mike, look whose whining, you master of insensitivity 02:32  |  Ben 12/09/08
  24.   freid #4 shame on you 03:49  |  peace 12/09/08
  25.   Can`t wait 05:06  |  Patriot 12/09/08
  26.   Inane 06:19  |  Gordon 12/09/08
  27.   #10 M Gerald Fried 06:22  |  mike 12/09/08
  28.   #13 W Stick to the subject of the thread 06:28  |  mike 12/09/08
  29.   Shmuelshachor 06:29  |  mike 12/09/08
  30.   Adrian 10:44  |  Connie 12/09/08
  31.   Axel... 11:21  |  Markus 12/09/08
  32.   Markus ... 18:50  |  Axel 12/09/08
  33.   # 18 gerald 21:04  |  Axel 12/09/08
  34.   #30 Connie 21:10  |  mike 12/09/08
  35.   # 30 connie 01:14  |  Axel 13/09/08
  36.   #13 W 01:19  |  wh 13/09/08
  37.   #30 connie 02:37  |  wh 13/09/08
  38.   Mike whines about the Jews whining 03:50  |  utagawa 13/09/08
  39.   #34 Mike 06:17  |  Avi 13/09/08
  40.   Racism and anti-semitisms have many decoys 08:23  |  Kris Lazar 13/09/08
  41.   It`s a stadium 11:09  |  David 13/09/08
  42.   Axel #32 11:27  |  S 13/09/08
  43.   NO David #41 - a NY stadium is NOT a Volkswagen car 11:33  |  S 13/09/08
  44.   A stadium is the soul of a city. 11:51  |  S 13/09/08
  45.   USS Liberty Stadium 15:16  |  W 13/09/08
  46.   #44 Macabi Tel Aviv play at the Nokia center 16:35  |  David 13/09/08
  47.   CAN SOMEONE ANSWERS THESE QUESTIONS PLEASE? 17:42  |  Historian 13/09/08
  48.   Axel... 18:02  |  Markus 13/09/08
  49.   #46 You compare a lousy "Nokia" center with Giants/Jets stadium? 18:49  |  S 13/09/08
  50.   #39 Avi 19:24  |  mike 13/09/08
  51.   # 47 s 19:45  |  Axel 13/09/08
  52.   #45 W 20:25  |  wh 13/09/08
  53.   #29 For mike the whiner 20:54  |  Urani Diot 13/09/08
  54.   N.Y. football teams end talks with company with Nazi ties over na 22:01  |  Albin 13/09/08
  55.   Markus ... 23:07  |  Axel 13/09/08
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