Donald Trump's new crusade: preventing American football from being "feminine"
The president has criticized a change in the rules of the game that has been introduced to protect the health of players.
BarcelonaUS President Donald Trump always finds time for sports. He recently attended the US Open tennis final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, where he arrived late and caused a real stir. Hours after the murder of journalist Charlie Kirk, his friend, he was a baseball game away, dancing in the stands. And now he's decided to start a crusade against rule changes in the NFL.
"The NFL needs to get rid of this ridiculous new rule." kickoffHow can they implement such a large and radical change so easily and quickly? It's at least as dangerous as the kickoff. normal "And it looks terrible," Trump explained on the social network Truth Social. "The ball moves, but the players don't, just the opposite of what American football is. American football effeminate "It's bad for America and it's bad for the NFL! Who comes up with these ridiculous ideas?" he added.
Trump's criticism refers to a new rule that the NFL has implemented this season. The change affects the opening kickoff when a team begins a possession. A player from the team that will not have the ball kicks it in the direction of the opponents, who are waiting for them. Once someone receives it, they begin to attack by running towards the opponents, who have rushed out from the other side of the field to stop them. Since they are running from a long distance, sometimes the hits when they collide are violent. This play occurs at the start of the game, when you lose possession or after a touchdown. To make the hits less harsh, the two teams' positions have been brought closer together.
Trump, however, does not agree. And he has decided to speak out against it. His relationship with the NFL has always been complicated. In 1983, in fact, he had tried to buy the New York Giants, without success. So he became an enemy of the NFL for a few years while he bet on another league. That year he bought the New Jersey Generals, a team in the second professional American football league, the USFL. The Generals were a weak team, but Trump spent a ton of money signing NFL players. He negotiated with the newly founded ESPN network to broadcast the games on television and introduced new features in the broadcasts, such as cameras that focused on the audience. At that time, the NFL and USFL didn't compete against each other; they competed in different months. But in 1984, Trump decided that the USFL should change its schedule to coincide with the NFL. The businessman even sued the NFL for having clauses that prevented television companies from buying the rights to the USFL and won the case. But the change of dates was a failure. In 1986, the league was suspended and all the teams had lost money.
Trump would not try to buy a team in this sport again, although he would often be seen at New England Patriots games because he maintains a good relationship with Robert Kraft, the owner. When some Black players in the league protested the wave of police killings of Black citizens by kneeling during the anthem, Trump criticized them. His war of words with Colin Kaepernick, a player for the 49ers, was harsh. Trump would go so far as to ask the league's teams to prevent anyone from offering Kaepernick a new contract. As president, he became the first president to attend a final, the Super Bowl, and has pressured team owners to regulate players to prevent scenes like Kaepernick's during the anthems from happening again. And now he wants to change the rules of the game. He never stops.
