An online petition to rename London “Sterlingrad” after star player Raheem Sterling is quickly gaining traction as the nation gets behind the England team ahead of Sunday evening’s final against Italy.
England have had a better-than-expected Euro 2020 having now made it all the way to the final after a hard-fought 2-1 win in extra time against Denmark on Wednesday night.
Craig Salmon, who started the petition, briefly detailed the purpose of his light-hearted campaign.
The description explained it was set up to honour Sterling and the success of the England football team since they “adopted Marxism” in reference to some criticism of the team taking the knee.
Sterlingrad is, of course, a reference to the Battle of Stalingrad which took place during World War Two, which saw the city Tsaritsyn renamed to Stalingrad in order to honour Joseph Stalin.
Since being launched, the petition has already attracted nearly 2,000 signatures online and fans have been leaving some humorous comments to shed light on their reasons for signing.
One wrote: “Raheem Sterling is a living England legend. A giant amongst men. A God from Brent.”
“Do we even need to win for this to happen?” asked another fan.
“I don’t want to look my future children in the eyes one day and them that we didn’t do this,” admitted a third.
It has also been backed by the Communist Party of Great Britain on their Twitter account.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who the petition is addressed to, has not yet responded.
However, he has seemingly backed the idea for an additional bank holiday requested by many members of the public
Linking to an article from The Telegraph on his Twitter account, Mr Khan gave his verdict on the idea to his 1.1million followers.
He said: “If England beat Chiellini and Bonucci on Sunday- of course we deserve a bank holiday. #EURO2020 #ItsComingHome.”
Featured image credit: Kirill Venediktov via Wikimedia Creative Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
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What a silly idea!