More NFL to Toronto News

TORONTO - The NFL is coming to Toronto. Maybe.

National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell was speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York yesterday when he allowed that sometime within the next decade, a city outside of the United States, most likely Toronto or Mexico City, could become home to an NFL expansion franchise.

"We can envision that," Goodell said when a reporter asked him about growth beyond U.S. borders. "I don't know if it will become a reality, but it is certainly a possibility."

And that is just the kind of "possibility" Paul Godfrey has been waiting to hear about for almost 20 years. The Toronto Blue Jays president has been trying to lure a four-down football team to Canada's largest city since 1989.

"I am very, very encouraged by the commissioner's remarks," Godfrey said. "I have always said it is not a question of if, it is only a question of when.

"And I stand by that."

The NFL has already approved the idea of playing a regular-season game on foreign soil next season, and in the seasons that follow. Goodell told his New York audience that he had narrowed the candidates for the 2007 contest down to five cities: Cologne and Frankfurt, Germany, London, Mexico City and Toronto. The final selection will be announced before the Super Bowl.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/...=ee1d1fb5-3e92-4c65-ae29-ae9b531137df&k=82008