Jacksonville Jaguars chief says London on right track for NFL team

London is heading in the “right direction” towards getting an NFL team, according to Jacksonville Jaguars senior vice president Hussain Naqi.

The NFL has been playing matches in the city since 2007 - 21 in total, 18 at Wembley and three at Twickenham - with three more to be played next season, including at Tottenham Hotspur's new 61,000-seat stadium.

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Some 26 different NFL teams have participated in those games with over 1.6 million fans attending, and Naqi believes the support shows the UK is on the right course towards potentially getting its own franchise.

"The UK and London is an amazing market potential," Naqi said.

"The fans have shown that they have a great deal of support, whether that means a full-time franchise down the road, we'll see.

"But certainly there is a lot of support and the trajectory is going in the right direction."

The Jaguars have made five visits to Wembley, most recently thrashing the Baltimore Ravens 44-7 on their run to this year's play-offs.

They travel to Foxborough on Sunday to face five-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, live on Sky Sports, but Naqi is hopeful that the Jags can cause an upset.

He said: "We are 60 minutes away from the Super Bowl, that is about as good as you can get for the remaining teams.

"[The Patriots'] success speaks for itself, they are an amazing team and Tom Brady is an amazing player.

"But we have a pretty strong team ourselves and I'd take our secondary, our defense and the way our offense played last week against anybody."

Jacksonville were given a pre-match scare after rookie Leonard Fournette was involved in a car accident on Tuesday, but the running back was unharmed and Naqi says he will be ready for the AFC Championship clash.

"He [Fournette] is fine," said Naqi. "It was an unfortunate incident but he will be ready to go.

"Anytime you can have a balanced attack, rushing and passing, it is huge.

"You need to be able to keep a defense off balance and he [Fournette] has been extraordinary in being able to do that."