In land of soccer and snooker, the British press has little use for the NFL – Washington Post

There is nary a mention of Sunday’s Redskins-Bengals game at Wembley Stadium, the last of three regular-season NFL games to be staged in London this year, in four major daily papers — the Sunday Times (of London), The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and The Mail.

The more sports-oriented Sun has a story about Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Domata Peko on page 55. But its focus is Peko’s love of Premier League soccer and his Chelsea fandom, in particular. It’s accompanied by a splashy photo of Peko’s hair.

The similarly sports-oriented Mirror has a story on Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins on page 57. Alas, it’s really about Cousins’s lack of desire to play rugby, given the violence.

The Mail’s 24-page sports section offers a window on current British sporting interest. It devotes pages 1 through 13 to soccer. That’s followed by coverage of cricket (pp. 14-15), rugby (pp. 16-17), tennis and Formula One (p. 18), golf (p.19), horse racing (p. 20) and a mixture of lower-level soccer, schedules and results on the last four pages.

The Premier League — specifically, an outburst by Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho — dominates the front page of nearly every London newspaper sports sections.

The Sunday Telegraph is a bit of an outlier, squeezing in stories, photos or teases about five sports on its sports-front: Soccer, cycling, Formula One, cricket and rugby union. But there’s not a mention of Redskins-Bengals in all 14 pages, suggesting that the NFL ranks somewhere behind not only the aforementioned five sports but also the following: boxing, tennis, horseracing, golf, cycling, motorcycling, rallying and snooker.