Rachel Kurzius
Native Americans protest before the Minnesota Vikings and Washington game in Minneapolis. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)
Looks like some politicians in the United Kingdom are just as angry about the name of Washington’s football team as their American counterparts.
Two British Parliament members wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell earlier this month requesting that the league change the name of Washington’s team or to send a different team to play in London in October, as first reported by ESPN.
“The exportation of this racial slur to the UK this Autumn when the Washington team is due to play, directly contravenes the values that many in Britain have worked so hard to instill,” the letter from MPs Ian Austin and Ruth Smeeth says. “Sport has the rare ability to act as a unifying force in the world, yet the issue of the Washington team name is inherently divisive. It is both puzzling and alarming that the NFL is choosing to export this controversy to Britain.”
The letter acknowledges that the NFL has been increasing its presence in the United Kingdom and has plans to operate a Britain-based franchise in the next six years, “yet the arrival in Britain of such a fierce controversy threatens to overshadow the work being done to achieve this.”
Austin and Smeeth also point out in the letter that Wembley stadium, where Washington will meet the Cincinnati Bengals, “has strict regulations against the use of racial slurs and chanting at its events.”
The two MPs were among the British politicians who met with members of the Change the Mascot campaign, according to ESPN.
The team is appealing a federal judge’s decision to uphold their trademark cancellation, and got some good legal news in December. A split decision from the full bench at the Federal Circuit Court called the provision used to take away the Washington football team’s trademark “unconstitutional.”
Owner Dan Snyder insists that he will never change the team’s name. An NFL spokesperson told ESPN that “a team’s name is a club’s decision. We recognize there are strong views on both sides of this.”
According to a recent poll from Washington City Paper, 58 percent of people in D.C. consider the name offensive, while 35 percent do not.
