WASHINGTON — The NFLPA decided Friday to decertify, a move that allows the players to sue the NFL in federal court for antitrust violations.
“The NFLPA will move forward as a professional trade association with the mission of supporting the interests and rights of current and former professional football players,” according to a statement from the union.
The NFL’s lead attorney, Jeff Pash, said Friday that no decision had been made yet on whether the owners will declare a lockout. The NFLPA is expected to seek an injunction from a federal judge blocking a lockout from going into effect.
The NFL receives an exemption from Congress on antitrust laws, but it is contingent on the players receiving a collectively bargained labor deal.
The NFLPA’s move effectively transfers the league’s labor battle from the negotiating table to a federal courtroom. The NFL called the decertification maneuver a “sham,” arguing that the only way a deal will be reached is at the bargaining table.
“At a time when thousands of employees are fighting for their collective bargaining rights, this union has chosen to abandon collective bargaining in favor of a sham “decertification” and antitrust litigation,” the NFL said Friday in a statement.
“This litigation maneuver is built on the indisputably false premise that the NFLPA has stopped being a union and will merely delay the process of reaching an agreement.”
The disbanding of the NFLPA comes after two weeks of negotiations before federal mediator George Cohen, during which the sides could not agree on how to divide the league’s $9.3 billion in revenue.
According to reports this week, the sides were about $800 million apart, but the NFL confirmed Friday that it had offered to “split the difference” with the players.
“In an effort to get a fair agreement now, the clubs offered a deal that would have had no adverse financial impact upon veteran players in the early years and would meet the players’ financial demands in the latter years. The union left a very good deal on the table.”
The NFL said its proposal would have left in place the current 16-game regular season for at least two years and establish a new “legacy fund” for retired players, to which owners would contribute $82 million over the next two years.
Just 15 minutes before Friday’s 5pm ET deadline to decertify, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said “significant differences” remained in negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement.
Smith said the union wanted the NFL owners to provide 10 years of audited financial statements in order for the NFLPA to agree to another extension of negotiations. The NFLPA has demanded to see team-by-team financial statements, but the owners have refused.
In its statement, the NFL argued that it offered “financial disclosure of audited league and club profitability information that is not even shared with the NFL clubs.”
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees defended the union’s decision, saying on Twitter that the players have never asked for more money during the labor talks. He said the union is looking out for the interests of retired players by rejecting the NFL’s latest proposal.
“Past players sacrificed a great deal to give us what we have now in the NFL, and we will not lay down for a second to give that up,” the Super Bowl XLIV MVP tweeted. “We have a responsibility and at some point you just have to stand up for what is right.”
Brees, along with fellow star quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, will reportedly be the lead plaintiffs on the NFLPA’s antitrust lawsuit.
The sides faced the same deadline last Friday, but agreed at the last minute to extend negotiations for one week. Cohen said Friday that the two sides were still too far apart to make further talks worthwhile.
“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,” Cohen said. “No useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to continue the mediation process at this time.”
The players have been increasingly emboldened since a favorable ruling from federal judge David Doty last week which shot down the owners’ plan to use nearly $5 billion in TV rights money as “lockout insurance.”
According to the New York Post, the players feel much more confident that they can defeat the owners in court on antitrust grounds, especially if — as expected — Doty is the judge presiding over the proceedings.
The last NFL work stoppage occurred in 1987.