WASHINGTON: National Football League (NFL) commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday that the league believes players should stand for the national anthem but he stopped short of endorsing US President Donald Trump’s demand that they be forced to do so.
“We respect our country, we respect our flag, we respect our national anthem,” Goodell told a news conference in New York several hours after Trump expressed disappointment that the NFL was not obliging players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“We believe that our players should stand for our national anthem,” Goodell said. “We want our players to stand. We’re going to encourage them to stand.”
But Goodell did not announce any changes to existing NFL policy, which says players “should” stand for the anthem but does not make it mandatory.
The NFL commissioner also declined to reply when asked what he would do if owners moved to punish players who refused to stand for the anthem, saying he would not discuss “hypotheticals”.
Trump waded back into the controversy over NFL players kneeling in protest during the national anthem with an early morning tweet on Wednesday.
“The NFL has decided that it will not force players to stand for the playing of our National Anthem,” Trump said. “Total disrespect for our great country!”
Trump’s tweet came after a meeting of NFL team owners and player representatives in New York on Tuesday.
Goodell also said that only “six or seven players” were taking part in protests and “we’re going to continue to work to try to put that at zero”.
“But we want to make sure that we’re understanding what the players are talking about, and that’s complex,” he said.
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick launched the protests in 2016, refusing to stand for the national anthem to draw attention to racial injustice and police brutality against blacks.
Asked if he understood what the players were protesting about, Goodell said they were “talking about equality issues.”
‘Stay out of politics’
“These are national issues, American issues,” he said. “The owners and the NFL really do care about their issues.”
Goodell also said the NFL is trying to “stay out of politics”.
“What we’re trying to do is get people focused on football,” he said.
The protests had mostly fizzled out until last month when Trump reignited the issue by decrying any player who kneeled during the anthem as a “son of a bitch” who should be fired.
Trump’s remarks sparked a furious backlash amongst NFL players, team owners, and league officials, with large-scale protests by players during the anthem in the weekend following the president’s tirade.
Trump has maintained his offensive against the protesting athletes, on Monday calling for the NFL to suspend players who continued to kneel.
Polls have found that a majority of Americans disapprove of the anthem protests but are unhappy with the way Trump has handled the issue.
The protests have also created divisions amongst NFL team owners. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said any of his players kneeling during the anthem risked being benched.
However, San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York has reportedly vowed to stand by players who continue to kneel.
