Spurs want to name train station near new stadium "Tottenham Hotspur Station" but it will cost them

As part of the Northumberland Development Project, Tottenham Hotspur are hoping to rebrand one of the London Overground train stations that will service the new station, but to do so could cost them a good deal of money.

According to the Daily Mail, Spurs want to rename the White Hart Lane station as "Tottenham Hotspur Station" once work on Tottenham's new stadium is completed in 2018. However, Transport for London, the governmental body responsible for public transportation in the greater London area, is said to be asking for a fee of around £12m. According to Squawka, that fee is said to include the costs of rebranding the signage in and around the station.

Spurs want to rename the station in part because, along with the Seven Sisters station, it is one of the two primary transportation hubs that service the stadium, but also because the existing station is named after Tottenham's current ground. Renaming the stadium after the club itself and not the old stadium would be more attractive to potential investors as the club looks for a stadium naming rights partner.

That said, £12m is a lot of money to name a train station and change some signage. To put that in context, that's more than what Tottenham spent for the majority of the players currently on the squad (individually, obviously, not cumulatively). The Mail suggests that the final fee might be less than that, but like the stadium itself nobody really knows how much it will ultimately cost.

My guess is that Tottenham will end up paying whatever the going rate is to rename the station. While keeping the station "White Hart Lane" would be a nice nod to the club's history, it would be a tad awkward to whomever purchases the stadium naming rights for fans to come through a station named after the club's old ground. It also makes the club unique: it's worth noting that the only other club to have a transport station named after it is Arsenal, which had the Gillespie Road tube station renamed "Arsenal Station" back in 1932.