British Government Warms To The Idea Of London-Based Football Team
With the way the National Football League has been having successful games at the Wembley station, the cards are in play for a London-based football team to soon grace the field. This comes after Chancellor George Osborne revealed to the media that the United Kingdom government is willing to support any plans to root a football team in London.
"I've said to the NFL that anything the government can do to make this happen, we will," Osborne said per BBC. "There are 32 teams in America and one of them could be a London team. That's a serious prospect."
The NFL has a long standing partnership with the country and has held regular season games at Wembley. The results were encouraging since said event attracted full capacity of spectators that numbered as high as 82,000. This Sunday, the stadium is set to play host again to the match between the Detroit Lions and the Atlanta Falcons, and this early, tickets are selling like hotcakes.
The British treasury head told the Evening Standard, a local newspaper, that the country will push for the realisation of the project. The NFL, for its part, reciprocated the kind thoughts of the country and stated its objective is to build the strong fan base in the U.K. in anticipation of future plans for expansion. The league did not categorically said if it is taking the steps to the said direction as the owners have the final say if the league will expand outside United States soil.
The NFL has been fielding games in London since 2007, the most notable of which are the Jacksonville Jaguars who are owned by Shahid Khan, also the owner of the English soccer club Fulham. The Jaguars have already played last year in London in a match that saw them lose to the San Francisco 49ers, and there are still more games in the schedule for the next two years.
If the move transpires, Osborne stressed this will aid the country in stepping another notch to becoming a global financial and business and cultural capital. This is a distinction the country is already is building upon.