Intercontinental Football League

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Intercontinental Football League (IFL) was the name of an attempt by the National Football League in the 1970s to establish an American football subsidiary league in Europe , similar to the World League of American Football / NFL Europe in the 1990s. Regular league operations never came about, but in the summer of 1976 and 1977 demonstration tours of five games each by lower-class US teams were organized through France, Austria and Germany.

Intercontinental Football League map.png

Already on May 27, 1972, 42 NFL professionals (including Dan Pastorini, Bob Hayes, Jim Kiick, Jan Stenerud, Alan Page, Matt Snell and Merlin Olsen) demonstrated the “le rugby Americain” in Paris, with the result of NFL Bleu against NFL Rouge 16: 6.

In addition, regardless of the NFL, a "Universal Football League" was planned in 1973 with teams also in Mexico and Canada, which then played the first World Bowl in 1974 as the World Football League with 12 teams , but ceased operations in the 1975 season.

The idea of ​​the league came from the then Kick-Scout of the Dallas Cowboys , the Yugoslav Bob Kap , who had already placed some European football players in the NASL , and also to the Dallas Cowboys as a kick specialist (see Horst Mühlmann , Toni Fritsch ), and the former president of TSV 1860 Munich , Adalbert Wetzel . For the spring of 1975 they planned a game operation with six teams in two divisions and a championship game called the European Championship. As with NFL Europe, the NFL owners should finance the league's kick-off and provide the club's cadres. As in the US farm team system , athletes who had not yet asserted themselves as regular players in the NFL, i.e. rookies and substitutes, were intended for the squad ; the IFL should also train these players. In addition, a few well-known NFL players with a connection to the home of the teams - for Rome, Italian-Americans - as well as European talents should be hired; Wetzel wanted to win some players from 1860 Munich for the Munich Lions at least as place kicker . On June 5, 1974, the NFL accepted the plan, commissioned Al Davis and Tex Schramm with the implementation and set the schedule for 1975; the six founding franchises were announced and four more for an expansion of the league for the following year. The Istanbul Conquerors , the Rome Gladiators and the Barcelona Almovogeres should form one division, the Munich Lions , the Berlin Bears (West Berlin) and the Vienna Lipizzaners the other division. Both divisions were supposed to play off the participants in the game for the “European Championship” in a double championship round in April and May.

For 1976 the Paris Lafayettes , the Copenhagen Vikings , the Rotterdam Flying Dutchmen and the Milan Centurions were planned as an extension of the league. Further expansion plans included teams in Amsterdam, Madrid, London and Monaco, but the start of the league was postponed by the NFL because of the Cyprus War and the 42-day player strike in the NFL and finally abandoned. Other reasons for the failure of the IFL are the competition from and the failure of the World Football League , as well as the poor economic development in the mid-1970s ( oil crisis ), and Europe was not yet ready for professional American football.

Since the NFL continued to be interested in expanding to Europe, two gymnastics tournaments were organized through Europe in 1976 and 1977 under the name of IFL, also to evaluate the chances of American football in Europe. In 1976 the college teams at Texas A&M University – Kingsville , the Javelinas, and Henderson State University were sent to Europe, where they played five times against each other in Austria, Germany and France. In 1977 the IFL then hired two semi-professional minor league football teams, the Newton Nite Hawks and the Chicago Lions , who played a "European Championship" in five games.

Club Gladiatori Roma , three-time Italian runner-up in the 1990s, emerged from the IFL franchise Rome Gladiators, which was launched in 1975 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Massimo Foglio: La Storia della IFL. In: endzone.it. February 10, 2006, accessed August 22, 2010 (Italian).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Tod Maher: Origins of the WLAF . In: Professional Football Researchers Association (Ed.): The Coffin Corner . tape 14 , no. 2 , 1992 ( pdf [accessed August 22, 2010]).
  3. ↑ Homecoming Reunion rekindles Memories Of 1976 European Tour. (No longer available online.) In: javelinaathletics.com. Texas A&M University Kingsville - Athletics, October 20, 2006, archived from the original on May 6, 2013 ; accessed on August 22, 2010 (English).
  4. ↑ Jessica Lowe: Nite Hawks semi-pro football team called Newton home during the 1970s . In: Newton Daily News . Newton August 3, 2007, p. 17 .
  5. ^ Lindsay Getman: American Football in Italy: About the Gladiatori Roma . In: The Spectator . tape XLIX , no. 21 . Clinton, Oneida County, New York April 9, 2009, pp. 23 ( [1] [accessed August 22, 2010]).