NFL pushes hard for London team but may encounter resistance at home


NFL returns to Wembley on Sunday for the Ravens’ fixture against the Jaguars, with officials eager to play up to eight matches a season in London but obstacles to establishing a franchise are still to be overcome

Ten years after the NFL first came to London the league remains hopeful of putting a team in the city. Perhaps as soon as in four years. “I said this was a 15-year project when we started in 2007, that was the sort of timeframe that seemed to work,” Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice-president of international and events, said. “The next four or five years should be very doable.”

A lot has to happen for the league to place a full-time franchise in the UK. Most importantly, the owner must want to move his team to London and the other owners would need to agree that such a move is a good idea. But there is a definite sense the NFL is pushing harder on its experiment to test whether American football can work in London.

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The international games are not popular with many American fans and several teams have leases on expensive stadiums

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