Amid civil unrest in Paris, NFL has 'never been close' to moving first game in France

NEW YORK — The NFL’s first game in France is scheduled for Sunday between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints.

The game is expected to continue as scheduled despite unrest in Paris and across France. About 2,400 people were arrested nationwide over the weekend amid riots over living costs and poor conditions in schools, per the Associated Press.

“All of our plans for the Paris game this weekend are moving forward as planned,” said Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business, international and league events, on Tuesday from league meetings. “We're obviously working and collaborating very closely with the Parisian French authorities, as well as the State Department. Obviously being very vigilant in everything we do in all of our planning on an hour by hour basis, working closely with the two teams. …

“We've got confidence in the plans, both from an ops and a security standpoint.”

NFL officials have been in Paris for about 10 days working on logistics, O’Reilly said. Among those on the ground is NFL senior vice president of security Cathy Lanier, who previously served as the Chief of Police for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

Stade de France, where the game will be staged, has hosted major international games before including Olympic Games.

The Saints flew from New York to Paris on Sunday night after beating the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. The Steelers are scheduled to fly to Paris on Thursday,

“All of our events we have going on, we always have a very strong security presence around all of those events,” O’Reilly said. “And that presence will be heightened with local authorities making sure that there's nothing more important from our standpoint than the team security, the fan security, everybody involved with this game. So extremely vigilant as we always are. As I said, confident in all of those plans as we head towards Sunday.”

The NFL has previously considered relocating domestic games when natural disasters, such as wildfires in Southern California, have dictated that resources not be redirected to a football game. O’Reilly said that is not a concern for the league with the game and surrounding fan events.

“We feel confident that we would not have any impact on the broader resources needed,” O’Reilly said. “That's always top of mind for us and we feel confident that we wouldn't be depleting resources in a negative way around this game.”

The Saints improved to 2-4 with their 34-27 win over the Giants. The Steelers arrive at 4-2 after a 26-19 overtime win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

France marks the third new market this season for the NFL, who played in Melbourne, Australia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this fall after two seasons playing in São Paolo. The NFL has nine total international games this season across Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Madrid, Munich and Mexico City.

O’Reilly said the league is considering expanding to 10 international games next year, which is the maximum amount allowed by the league’s current collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.

The NFL continues to have interest in playing a game in Asia, and particularly Japan, but has not finalized to announce a game there yet. Some countries that hosted games this year are likely to win bids for 2027, including some games in new cities for returning countries akin to the NFL’s recent model in Brazil.

Has the NFL considered moving the game out of Paris due to unrest?

“We have never been close to that point,” O’Reilly said. “We've always got contingency plans for every game, every single one of them. But no, we were not at that point at any point in the conversation.”