Euro 2016 News: England Coach Roy Hodgson Angry With NFL's UK Schedule
England's national team head coach, Roy Hodgson, is not happy with the English Football Association (FA) for allowing a National Football League game to be scheduled prior to his team's Euro 2016 qualifier games.
The Dallas Cowboys are slated to play the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium this weekend, six days prior to England's qualifier game against Slovenia, potentially causing further damage on the field after the Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons used the facility in late October.
"I am a football coach, a football manager, and I am talking about English football, not American football," Hodgson said. "I don't really think you could expect me to say, 'Excellent, delighted, well done.' I'm realistic, I'm pragmatic and this match [on Sunday] has been organized for a period of time. The pitch, unfortunately, is not in the best of nick anyway, which we're all a bit unhappy with."
Hodgson should expect more of the same next year with three more games set to be played in 2015, including a matchup between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets that will be played on Oct. 4, five days prior to the English national team match against Estonia in a late-stage qualifier game that may have consequences on whether the team will move on to play in the Euro 2016 tournament.
Further aggravating Hodgson is the fact Wembley Stadium will host two 2015 Rugby World Cup games -- defending World Cup champions New Zealand's All Blacks against Argentina on Sept. 20, 2015, and Ireland versus Romania on Sept. 27, 2015 -- adding more stress on field conditions prior to England hitting the pitch against Estonia.
"It is a decision Wembley has made and I know the ground staff will work very, very hard to give us the best pitch they can give us," Hodgson said. "Hopefully in the future the pitch will recover to its normal level and when it has done that we will be better able to support this type of activity,"
The FA is in its eighth year of a partnership with the NFL as the American football league looks to expand interest in the sport across the pond and globalize their name brand. Two other games will be played at Wembley: The Jacksonville Jaguars (owned by Shahid Khan, who also owns the English Football League Championship team Fulham FC) take on the Buffalo Bills on Oct. 25, 2015, and the Kansas City Chiefs go up against the Detroit Lions on Nov. 1, 2015.
"We are very appreciative of the outstanding support from our fans in the UK, not only for the games at Wembley, but for all of the related NFL events we have hosted throughout the city," NFL Executive Vice President of International Mark Waller said in a statement.
"We believe we have a great 2015 schedule that will continue to attract new fans to our sport and strengthen the bonds with our existing fans. To provide U.K. fans the opportunity to see games on consecutive weekends, to see new teams, and to attend a division game, which feature some of the most passionate rivalries in our sport, are signs of the growth and depth of our U.K. fan base."
The English national team's contract with Wembley Stadium runs out in 2017, while the NFL has a deal in place with the venue that expires in 2016. The American football league is rumored to be looking at other venues in the United Kingdom in order to leverage a better deal from Wembley Stadium. Sports Business Daily reported in July that the NFL is considering playing at Twickenham Stadium, an 82,000-seat rugby venue outside of London, as well as Olympic Stadium, which will be home for English Premier League (EPL) club West Ham United in 2016.
Other possible sites include the facility in Cardiff, as well as the new stadium being built for Tottenham Hotspur, who are looking to move into their new 58,000-seat venue by 2017.
Despite Hodgson's anger, losing the NFL would be a big blow for Wembley Stadium in that the American football league attracts a huge crowd to the facility. The Miami Dolphins-Oakland Raiders game attracted 83,436, while the Atlanta Falcons-Detroit Lions game drew 83,532 this season.
"The expectation is we will be playing games beyond 2016, and we need the flexibility to play those games where we want and when we want," the NFL senior vice president of international, Chris Parsons, said to Sports Business Daily. "Clearly Wembley gives us some great options. At the same time, Wembley also has England [soccer] games going on during the weeks we play. That is a challenge for us if we want to play more games, how we actually fit into the schedule."
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