An official statement from the UKFL

Official Statement from the UKFL:

2021 has been an unusual year for everyone, and that applies to UKFL and all of us working on this exciting project. We’ve been incredibly busy, as we work to deliver the first professional British American Football league.

After our soft launch in February, we received a truly overwhelming amount of support, and over the next 11 months, we have grown our community massively, expanded our team, honed our vision, and began to take big strides towards our goal.

It hasn’t been easy, though. The uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and the impact it has had on everyone’s day-to-day life have also, unfortunately, affected our ability to make progress at the pace we had hoped.

We are determined to make sure UKFL provides the best possible experience for our players, coaches, and fans around the country. To assure that we deliver on this, we have made the difficult decision to delay the launch of the league by a year, to May 2024.

Our team has put a lot of thought into this choice. We know that over the past two years, delays have been frustratingly common, and it goes without saying that we are as disappointed as you are – however, we are still confident that the end result of all our work will be worth waiting for.

One of the most important areas of our progress in 2021 has involved a massive undertaking of research into the stadiums that we will use for the league. We put in countless hours and reached out to hundreds of contacts all around the UK to refine the list of appropriate locations.

We have made significant progress, not just in whittling down the list but also in reaching out to and visiting numerous interested stadiums that we would like to work with. Naturally, we have only been able to do so within the confines of lockdowns and regulations.

During our search, we have already identified 12 specific stadiums that are particularly well-suited to our needs, spread across different regions of the country. We can’t wait to continue and pick up where we left off in our discussions with these great venues and visit more locations this year.

The effort with stadiums has also been accompanied by research and planning on locations and teams. Yes, we are getting closer to that time where we can answer the question you all ask us most often – where our teams will be playing.

Our plans have barely changed, and the goals we have in mind for our launch are no less exciting. We don’t want to settle for anything less than the league’s true potential. If we tried to rush and launch in 2023 despite the obstacles and difficulties, we would risk providing a worse product and fan experience than you all deserve.

That isn’t going to happen. It’s difficult to make guarantees when everything is so unpredictable at the moment, but that is one guarantee we will happily make – we will not settle.

Our timelines will naturally shift with a new kick off date, but bear with us. We will share the information you are all excited for as soon as we can. For now, all we ask is that you stick with us on this journey.

We are still fully committed to growing British American Football and providing the best product possible for the fans in the stands when we kick off in May 2024.