NFL and NFLPA fail to reach agreement on new labour deal – NFL news
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) has rejected the National Football League (NFL) proposal for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, revoked the certification of the League and filed a lawsuit against it in federal court.
Even with two extensions during the past two weeks in an attempt to come up with a new CBA, months of stop and go negotiations and two weeks of talks with a federal mediator, the two sides could not come up with a deal that they are both happy with.
“The parties have not achieved an overall agreement, nor have they been able to resolve the strongly held competing positions that separated them on core issues,” mediator George Cohen said. “No useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to
continue the mediation process at this time.”
The League can lock players out at 11:59 PM Eastern Time when the current CBA expires. However, the League said that they have not decided whether they want to impose a lockout or not, while the players’ union has gone to court to protect themselves from
a lockout.
By decertifying themselves, the NFLPA now has the right to file class-action lawsuits against the League. The antitrust suit, specifically titled the Brady et al vs. National Football League et al, is targeting the League’s policies on free-agent restrictions,
salary caps and the draft. The lawsuit includes superstar quarterback Tom Brady’s name because he is one of the ten players that have filed the lawsuit in court, including another Most Valuable Player quarterback, Peyton Manning.
The players are seeking triple the amount of damages that they have sustained, which means that the lawsuit could mean that hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake through the Sherman Act. This act is from 1890 and is a federal antitrust statute that
places limits on commerce and restricts monopolies.
The union’s injunction request would take about a month to be ruled while the antitrust lawsuit will most likely take much longer. The CBA was supposed to expire last week but was extended twice, ultimately to Friday 11 March, 2011. There were two main issues
that the two sides could not agree on: how much monetary information the NFL would reveal and how to split over $9 billion of income.
“I would dare any one of you to pull out any economic indicator that would suggest that the National Football League is falling on hard times,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said. “The last 14 days, the National Football League has said, 'Trust
us.' But when it came time for verification, they told us it was none of our business.”
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