TOMSULA CALLS FOR UNITY IN EUROPE
When Jim Tomsula accepted the presidency of the American Football League Europe, many expected the former NFL head coach to focus first on stadiums, commercial partners and stabilising a fledgling competition. Instead, less than a fortnight into the role, he has publicly outlined the far broader ambition of bringing Europe’s fractured professional American football landscape back together.
Speaking during an online forum on Wednesday evening, Tomsula repeatedly stressed that his long-term vision extends beyond the AFLE itself, arguing that the sport will only fulfil its potential if the divisions that have emerged in the past year are eventually overcome. Asked directly whether he would support closer cooperation — or even a merger — between Europe’s two leading professional leagues, Tomsula left little room for doubt.
“That’s the dialogue I am promoting,” he claimed. “Once we leave the field, we all have to stop this fighting and bickering and we have to be able to sit at the table, compromise with each other and do what’s best for football and the people. That’s the goal of all of this.”
Rather than framing the issue as an AFLE versus European Football Alliance battle, Tomsula repeatedly returned to the same central argument that European football’s biggest opponent is fragmentation itself.
“The only way to make football work in Europe is if we all work together,” he insisted. “It has to be everybody working together, supporting the game we love.”
Those comments are particularly notable given Tomsula’s new position. Although his immediate responsibility is to oversee the AFLE’s sporting and commercial development, he made clear he does not see long-term success as existing independently of the wider European landscape.
Later in the discussion, another question highlighted what many fans have felt throughout 2026, that established rivalries, supporter groups and club identities have been split between the two competitions following last winter’s collapse of the previous European structure. Rather than defending the status quo, Tomsula — a previous head coach of the ALFE’s Rhein Fire while in the European League of Football — admitted the division had been painful to watch.
“My personal views broke my heart that things got the way they got,” he said. “I don’t have a lot to speak on that because I wasn’t part of it… but what I am going to say is, overall, I am starting dialogue and I do want the conversation. We have to sit at a table, we have to have the conversation and we’ve got to work it out.”
The biggest obstacle, in the eyes of the former San Francisco 49ers head coach, is not financial or logistical but personal.
“The number one thing we’ve got to do when we walk in that room is put the ego on the shelf,” Tomsula noted, before giving the clearest indication of his ambitions when asked how he hoped European football would look in a couple of years’ time. “My dream, my goal, is that we have one powerful league and we all get moving in the same direction.”
The American, who was forced to leave his role with Rhein Fire due to family illness, acknowledged that he does not yet know what such a structure would ultimately look like.
“There has to be a way,” he said, “but I don’t know the answer to that yet. I haven’t sat down yet. I hope nobody says no. I’m not a threat. I just want to sit down. Heck, I’ll pick up the bill. I’ll pay for dinner. But let’s sit down and talk and let’s be sensible here. If we need to disagree, let’s disagree. Then let’s work towards a mutual answer.”
Throughout the discussion, Tomsula consistently returned to one theme — the supporters.
“There is no football league that’s going to make it without their fans,” he pointed out. “We have to understand that the fan base is the driving force behind all professional sports.”
He argued that European American football possesses something many established sports envy, namely fervent but family-friendly supporters.
“We have the most unique, passionate fans,” he confirmed. “There’s none of this hooligan stuff. We’ve got young and old, children, grandparents. A man and a wife can take their children and have a great afternoon. It is a very unique and special environment. We have to keep our fans at the forefront of this.”
Whether those conversations ultimately lead anywhere remains uncertain right now. The AFLE and EFA remain separate organisations with different ownership structures, commercial priorities and competitive ambitions. Any formal reunification would require agreement from stakeholders well beyond Tomsula himself.
Even so, the significance of Wednesday’s comments lies less in any immediate prospect of merger than in the fact they were made publicly by the president of one of the competing leagues. At a time when European football has largely been defined by division, the open arguing is now that its future depends on finding common ground rather than winning a turf war.