The NFL has insisted multiple times this week that Sunday’s game in France will be safe to play and safe for fans to attend amid civil unrest in Paris, but the Pittsburgh Steelers showed a different side to that confidence on Thursday by canceling one of their fan events.
The club confirmed to OutKick that it has canceled a Steelers House fan event scheduled for this week.
“Following recent events in the Bastille neighborhood and after careful consideration, we felt it appropriate not to move forward with the planned Steelers House fan event in Paris,” the club announced.
This isn’t the lone crack in the “all is well” armor the NFL has put on about this event. Earlier this week, Dani Watt, the wife of Steelers defensive end TJ Watt, questioned publicly why the game has not been moved.
NFL SAYS FIRST REGULAR-SEASON GAME IN FRANCE REMAINS ON TRACK DESPITE GROWING UNREST IN PARIS
This is an obvious break from the the league’s narrative that the civil unrest in Paris and other parts of France will not hinder it from playing its game and, indeed, holding a fan event of its own.
The NFL on Thursday told OutKick that its own NFL Fan House event scheduled for Friday and Saturday remains as scheduled.
“It’s happening,” a league spokesman said.
So what we have is the NFL taking another bold step in virtually guaranteeing the safety of its players and fans during the game, but also doing the same for a fan event over a two-day span at 46 Rue Cambon in Paris.
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And this is where you should know it’s not only the NFL that seems confident about the safety of Americans tied to the game in France.
On Wednesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he’s going to the game and he spoke with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the event in recent days about moving forward with the game.
Rubio told OutKick that the American embassy in France believes the game “will be fine.”
So the NFL is moving ahead, including with its own fan event at which multiple thousand French and American football fans are expected in the days prior to the game.
“There’s nothing more important from our standpoint than the teams’ security, the fans’ security, everybody involved with this game,” NFL executive vice president Peter O’Reilly said at the League Fall Meeting this week.
“Again, we’ve made all the preparations,” Goodell said. “We’ve been in touch with all the appropriate authorities.”