Rams Want to Play Exhibition in London

Two National Football League teams probably will play an exhibition game in London next summer, and Ram owner Georgia Frontiere will be upset if one of them isn’t the Rams.

“It was our idea,” she said recently.

Commissioner Pete Rozelle said here Friday: “We hope to have two of the playoff teams play in Wembley Stadium on the Sunday after the Hall of Fame game. There’s considerable interest in the NFL over there.”

If there is a game in London, it won’t be the first abroad for the NFL. The St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Chargers played an exhibition game in Tokyo in 1976. Then in 1978, the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles played in Mexico City.

Frontiere, who spends much of each summer in London, said recently that she became aware of interest there several years ago. She has been trying for three years to organize a game there for the Rams that would be part of a tour of American military bases in Europe.

Rozelle didn’t say which teams will play, but a league source said that four teams are being considered--the Rams, Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets and Chicago Bears. The Raiders, indicated that they aren’t interested.

The Rams have been planning to participate for several months. They were scheduled to play the Hall of Fame game against the Chiefs at Canton, Ohio, but asked to be relieved of that obligation by the league so they could schedule a London game.

The league agreed, and the owners passed a resolution to play a game in London every year. They also decided, however, that the league will choose the teams. That, in effect, took the issue out of the Rams’ hands, but they assumed they would still be one of the first two teams designated because of the initial interest and groundwork by Frontiere.