For decades, reporters covering American football have had the right to roam through team locker rooms after games, requesting interviews midway through their ablutions.

Now this long-treasured prerogative may be in danger. The union representing players in the National Football League has called for “immediate changes” to what it now regards as an “outdated policy”.
“Players feel that locker-room interviews invade their privacy and are uncomfortable,” its executive committee said in a statement.

The union, the NFL Players Association, called for alterations that would “foster a more respectful and safer workplace for all players”.

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The policy of allowing reporters into locker rooms dates back to an era when those correspondents were largely