NFL mothers hit back at Trump: 'Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble'
The members of the Professional Football Players Mothers Association would like Mr Trump to stop talking about their sons
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Your support makes all the difference.In insulting professional football players, President Donald Trump appears to have angered yet another powerful group: their mothers.
The Professional Football Players Mothers Association (PFPMA) recently sent a letter to Mr Trump regarding his campaign-rally comments about NFL players.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out!’” the President exclaimed at a rally in Alabama. He followed up by attacking the NFL via Twitter.
The PFPMA, a non-profit group dedicated to "educating and informing mothers of professional football players about the business", said they were “saddened” by Mr Trump’s comments.
“It saddens the organisation to know that President Donald Trump would make our sons – as well as their mothers – the target of inflammatory, offensive comments that are intended to promote anger and hatred,” they wrote.
The divisive comments, they added, “just won’t work!”
“We know the hearts of our sons and therefore, we know that they will continue to present themselves in a positive image that exemplifies professional sportsmanlike behaviour, high moral values and good character,” they wrote.
At the end of the letter they included a proverb for the President: “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.”
Some NFL players have been sitting out the national anthem for more than a year now, to protest the killing of black people by police officers. Mr Trump’s comments at the Alabama rally drew new attention to the protests, and drove even more members of the NFL to partake.
Some teams, such as the Green Bay Packers, have elected to link arms instead of kneeling during the anthem. The Packers said in a statement that the action signifies “a coming together of players who want the same things that all of us do – freedom, equality, tolerance, understanding, and justice for those who have been unjustly treated, discriminated against or otherwise treated unfairly.”
The PFPMA is not the first group to push back against Mr Trump’s “son of a b****” comments – in fact, they're not even the first mothers to do so. Teresa Kaepernick, the mother of the NFL player who started the protest, responded: “Guess that makes me one proud b****!”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell issued his own statement, saying Mr Trump’s comments “demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities”.
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