NFL keen to cash in on Wembley success

Different class: Sam Aiken grabs a brilliant pass from Tom Brady to score as New England Patriots crush Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley
David Yuill13 April 2012

The head of NFL UK is confident London will host at least two games next year after more than 84,000 fans saw New England Patriots demolish Tampa Bay Buccaneers 35-7 at Wembley.

Last night was the third successive year that Wembley has staged a regular-season match and the success of the event means the NFL will step up their efforts to bring more games here.

Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of NFL UK, said: "We now have a track record of six teams coming over with a great level of feedback from all sides. As we look to move to two games a year, I think it's really important that the team, the owners involved and the players are all saying good things.

"I'm going to be working hard with a bunch of other people in the next week or two to try and see if we can get an agreement internally and hopefully by Christmas time be able to make some announcements."

Patriorts star quarter-back Tom Brady — who threw three touchdowns as his side made easy work of beating the winless Buccaneers — would welcome a return to London.

He said: "It's a unique bonding experience for all of us. As football players we don't often get to spend as much time together as we had. We all went out to dinner on Friday night, which you don't get the chance to do often, spending 10 meals together and sitting on the plane — it's great."

Brandon Meriweather put the Patriots ahead after just two minutes, running home a great interception, and his side added to the lead with touchdowns from Wes Welker and Sam Aiken, who snapped up Brady's 53-yard pass.

The Buccs — technically the home side — scored when Antonio Bryant caught Josh Johnson's 33-yard pass just before half time.

But the Patriots hammered home their advantage with further touchdowns from Benjamin Watson and Laurence Maroney.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT