8 months ago
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President Donald Trump has threatened to artifact a woody for the Washington Commanders' caller stadium if the American shot squad does not revert to their archetypal name.
The US president said successful a station connected Truth Social connected Sunday that a "big clamouring" exists for the "Washington Whatevers" to alteration backmost to the Redskins and claimed it would marque the squad "more valuable".
The NFL squad dropped the sanction Redskins successful July 2020 aft a reappraisal arsenic it was agelong considered racist and violative to Native Americans. They were called the Washington Football Team during the 2020 play earlier changing to the Commanders successful 2022.
In April, a woody was agreed for the Commanders to physique a caller £3bn, 65,000-seater stadium astatine the tract wherever RFK Stadium - their location from 1961 to 1997 - inactive stands.
Last week, DC Council were urged to velocity up approving the stadium, external plans by a apical Republican politician.
Trump wrote: "I whitethorn enactment a regularisation connected them that if they don't alteration the sanction backmost to the archetypal Washington Redskins and get escaped of the ridiculous moniker Washington Commanders I won't marque a woody for them to physique a stadium successful Washington.
"The squad would beryllium overmuch much invaluable and the woody would beryllium much breathtaking for everyone."
In February this year, Trump made past erstwhile helium became the archetypal sitting president of the USA to be the Super Bowl arsenic the Philadelphia Eagles bushed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22.
Trump besides urged Major League Baseball broadside the Cleveland Guardians to alteration their sanction backmost to the Cleveland Indians, having changed it successful 2021.
"Our large Indian people, successful monolithic numbers, privation this to happen," Trump said. "Their practice and prestige is systematically being taken distant from them."
Guardians squad president Chris Antonetti told The Athletic: "Not thing I'm tracking oregon paying a batch of attraction to.
"But I would accidental generally, I recognize determination are precise antithetic perspectives connected the determination we made a fewer years ago. It's a determination we made and we've gotten the accidental to physique the marque arsenic the Guardians implicit the past 4 years and we're excited astir the future."
Earlier this twelvemonth the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) issued a connection "in effect to caller nationalist endorsements by governmental figures supporting unsanctioned Native 'themed' mascots - a stance that NCAI and Tribal leaders nationwide unequivocally reject".
"These depictions are not tributes - they are rooted successful racism, taste appropriation, and intentional ignorance. For excessively long, they person perpetuated harmful stereotypes that degrade, dehumanize, and sojourn harm connected the wellbeing of Native peoples," it added.
BBC Sport has contacted the Washington Commanders for comment.
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