New Orleans (AFP) – The Kansas City Chiefs aim for a historic hat-trick of Super Bowl titles on Sunday when they take on the Philadelphia Eagles in front of a star-studded crowd in New Orleans, headed by US President Donald Trump. Trump, a strident critic of the National Football League over the years, will become the first sitting president ever to attend the Super Bowl when he takes his seat among a sell-out crowd of around 74,000 fans at the Caesars Superdome for the biggest annual event in the American sporting calendar.
Pop superstar Taylor Swift will also be in the VIP seats to watch as her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his Chiefs team-mates bid to become the first team in history to lift three consecutive Vince Lombardi Trophies. Trump’s presence at the NFL showpiece will heighten security around an event which was already protected by a heavy police presence following the New Year’s Day attack that left 14 people dead and many more injured in the Big Easy’s famous Bourbon Street district.
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“I’m confident the safest place this weekend will be under the security umbrella we have in place around (the Superdome),” Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s chief security officer, said this week. “We have reviewed, and re-reviewed, all the events of January 1.” Trump’s groundbreaking attendance at the game comes against a backdrop of a strained relationship with the NFL stretching back several decades, when he sought to join the league as an owner in the early 1980s only to be rebuffed. Trump also triggered uproar during his first term as president when in 2017 he criticized NFL players who knelt during the playing of the US national anthem to draw attention to issues of racial injustice. The Philadelphia Eagles, winners of the 2017-2018 Super Bowl, were later disinvited from a planned White House reception after several players indicated they would not attend.
Players in Sunday’s game have so far walked a diplomatic line when asked about Trump’s presence, with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes saying playing in front of the US leader would be “cool.” Fans in New Orleans, meanwhile, expressed hope that Trump does not politicize the occasion. “I’m hoping that basically he comes in and he’s at his seat and they kind of like keep it quiet. I just want it to be a fun game and not be political,” Debra Ward, a teacher from Virginia, told AFP.
As always, the Super Bowl crosses over into popular culture and the half-time show this year will feature hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar, who had a clean sweep at last Sunday’s Grammys, winning in all five categories for which he received nominations. Bookmakers and casinos meanwhile are taking odds on whether Chiefs star Kelce will propose to pop icon Swift after the game. American sports books, now legal in 38 states, could take an estimated $1.39 billion in bets on the Super Bowl according to an annual report from the American Gaming Association (AGA).
For the more serious punters, the oddsmakers have the Chiefs as slight favorites for the game, a rematch of the Super Bowl from two years ago which the Chiefs won by three points. The Chiefs defended their title last year, beating the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas and putting them one win away from an unprecedented “three-peat.” The 29-year-old Mahomes will become one of just four quarterbacks in the history of the NFL to have won more than three Super Bowls should he triumph again, having first led the Chiefs to Super Bowl glory in 2020.
But the Eagles have added serious offensive firepower since their defeat two years ago, with mobile quarterback Jalen Hurts joined by the game-changing speed and power of running back Saquon Barkley. The Chiefs put the finishing touches to their Super Bowl preparations on Saturday with a 30-minute walkthrough of a mock game. Chiefs coach Andy Reid saluted his team’s attitude to training over the whole week since arriving in Louisiana. “I thought the guys worked hard, they got done what they needed to get done,” Reid said.
The Eagles had a similarly relaxed final session before heading to the Superdome on Saturday for a team photo. Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said his players were “hungry” and “ready to roll.” “We’re ready for the challenge against a really good team,” Sirianni said.
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