By ADMIN FC Washington joins other major professional sports teams to drop names Indigenous people say are racist.
The National Football League (NFL) team in Washington, DC will now be called the Commanders, after a lengthy review on how to replace the franchise’s previous name, which Indigenous people said was racist.
The American football team’s new name was unveiled on Wednesday, after a public pressure campaign led by Native Americans as well as a threatened loss of sponsors forced the squad to drop its previous name in 2020.
The organisation also committed to avoiding Native American imagery in its rebrand after being called the Washington Football Team during the past two seasons.
“As an organization, we are excited to rally and rise together as one under our new identity while paying homage to our local roots and what it means to represent the nation’s capital,” team co-owner Dan Snyder said in a statement.
Snyder, who bought the franchise in 1999, had long fought off public pressure to rebrand and went as far to say the club would never change its name.
But Native American advocacy groups had campaigned for years to get the team to drop its previous name, and that pressure ramped up amid a nationwide reckoning on racism and police brutality triggered by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.
Snyder eventually changed his stance after FedEx Corp, which owns the naming rights to the team’s suburban stadium in Landover, Maryland, urged the club to rebrand. PepsiCo and Nike both followed FedEx’s lead and said they welcomed the call for a review of the name.
MLB’s Cleveland franchise said last July that it would change its name to the Guardians after the 2021 season, a move that drew praise from Native American groups who had long viewed the team’s old name as disparaging.
In Canada, the Canadian Football League (CFL) team in Edmonton, Alberta, officially rebranded as the Elks last year after facing similar pressure to change its previous name.
