To: The Football Association (FA)
An end to NFL at the home of English Football
To stop staging NFL games at Wembley and addressing the problem of funds and filling the stadium by creating a franchise in London and commercialising sport in the UK. Our football should be the priority and our tradition should be upheld.
Why is this important?
Have we not been "Americanised" and forced into capitalist practises enough?
In the modern age of sport, where everything is branded and turned into a franchise for profit, where at every point possible money is made from the games we love, and where tradition & passions are passed down for the pursuit of commercial profit: it's important to protect what we still have. And by allowing the NFL into our country, in what is purely a marketing campaign to see if there is the potential for an NFL franchise in London, I believe that is a step too far.
Wembley is a purpose built English Football stadium, there to build it's own history in the one of, if not the most, loved sport in the country. Why should we allow NFL games to not only tarnish the tradition of sport in the UK but quite literally tarnish the pitches we play on? In England's last international at Wembley (at the time of writing) against Slovenia following an NFL game less than a week before, there were brand marks left on the pitch and little grass left to work with, as Roy Hodgson pointed out. Slovenian staff said the pitch was "ruined". This is not something that should be continued, and the FA should not allow itself to appear so weak to America's demands and the possibility of profits they offer. By pursuing a deal to create a London NFL franchise to fill their money pots, corruption is not something they should currently be accusing other footballing institutions of.
Therefore, I ask you, support this campaign and end our support of the commercialisation of sport. Let the FA realise that this is not something we want, that OUR football should take priority and that if they have problems filling the stadium, we don't want the solution to be an alien sport taking its place: We don't want their money or their brands; we want our tradition and the practise of real, non-consumerised sports.
In the modern age of sport, where everything is branded and turned into a franchise for profit, where at every point possible money is made from the games we love, and where tradition & passions are passed down for the pursuit of commercial profit: it's important to protect what we still have. And by allowing the NFL into our country, in what is purely a marketing campaign to see if there is the potential for an NFL franchise in London, I believe that is a step too far.
Wembley is a purpose built English Football stadium, there to build it's own history in the one of, if not the most, loved sport in the country. Why should we allow NFL games to not only tarnish the tradition of sport in the UK but quite literally tarnish the pitches we play on? In England's last international at Wembley (at the time of writing) against Slovenia following an NFL game less than a week before, there were brand marks left on the pitch and little grass left to work with, as Roy Hodgson pointed out. Slovenian staff said the pitch was "ruined". This is not something that should be continued, and the FA should not allow itself to appear so weak to America's demands and the possibility of profits they offer. By pursuing a deal to create a London NFL franchise to fill their money pots, corruption is not something they should currently be accusing other footballing institutions of.
Therefore, I ask you, support this campaign and end our support of the commercialisation of sport. Let the FA realise that this is not something we want, that OUR football should take priority and that if they have problems filling the stadium, we don't want the solution to be an alien sport taking its place: We don't want their money or their brands; we want our tradition and the practise of real, non-consumerised sports.
