The Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints are scheduled to play the first regular-season NFL game ever held in France this Sunday. But the matchup is set to take place just days after violent protests broke out across the country, raising questions about whether the game should go on as planned.
On Tuesday, a top NFL executive addressed those concerns. Peter O’Reilly said that the league is being “very vigilant” with its planning, but he insisted that it has never come close to moving or postponing the game.
Unrest in France
Hundreds of thousands of people took part in nationwide demonstrations across France on Saturday, protesting rising living costs and poor conditions in schools.
Some of those protests turned violent, as masked groups set fires, looted shops, and attacked public buildings in several cities. Police arrested at least 1,800 people across the country, including 855 in the Paris region alone, according to the Associated Press.
The game will be played at Stade de France, just north of Paris. In a statement on Saturday, the league said that preparations were continuing as scheduled and that there had been “no disruption or impact at league sites,” via ESPN.
‘We have never been close’
O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president for club business and international, said that the league remains confident in its plans for Sunday.
“[We’re] obviously being very vigilant in everything we do and all of our planning on an hour-by-hour basis, working closely with our two teams,” O’Reilly said Tuesday, via OutKick’s Armando Salguero. “We’ve got confidence in the plans both from an ops and security standpoint.”
O’Reilly acknowledged that the league has contingency plans in place, including moving or postponing the game. But he said those options have never been seriously considered.
“We have never been close to that point,” O’Reilly said. “As you know, 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.”
O’Reilly also pointed to the league’s security team and its partnership with Stade de France, which hosted events during the 2024 Olympic Games.
“Our team’s been on the ground, security team’s been on the ground, and obviously, working in close partnership with Stade de France, which is a world-class stadium, hosted world-class events, most recently the Olympic Games,” O’Reilly said.
He added that security will be “heightened with local authorities” for the game.
“So extremely vigilant as we always are. As I said, confident in all of those plans as we head towards Sunday,” O’Reilly said.
Needless to say, the league will be keeping a close eye on the situation in France over the next few days.
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