NFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football (WLAF) to serve as a type of spring league. In 1995, when the league was revamped after a two-year hiatus, the league name was shortened to the World League. In 1998, the league rebranded itself as the NFL Europe League or NFL Europe, which it held for most of the rest of its lifetime. For the league's last season, it would officially change its name to NFL Europa.
At the time of its disbanding, there were six teams in the league: five based in Germany and one in the Netherlands. Players in NFL Europa were predominantly assigned by National Football League teams who wanted these younger, "developmental" players to get additional game experience and coaching. The expenses of these players and their coaches while living in Europe were assumed by the league.
On 29 June 2007, the NFL announced NFL Europa would immediately cease operations.
Read more about NFL Europe: Experimental Rules, NFL Europe Teams, Television Coverage
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“In everyone’s youthful dreams, philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and with singular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discover its local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given birth to none.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)