The National Fantasy Football Convention said plenty in a lawsuit filed earlier this week against the NFL. On Thursday, the NFFC said even more.
The group that had its planned fantasy-football convention scrapped after the NFL allegedly pressured players to cancel has issued a press release with additional details regarding the facts supporting the lawsuit.
According to the NFFC, the league knew about the event well before early June, when efforts commenced to persuade players to back out in deference to the NFL’s gambling policy. The NFFC claims that the league posted an article about the event at NFL.com in March. Though the article was removed 24 hours later, the league waited to act against the event until June.
Julie Pettit, one of the lawyers representing the NFFC, says the league should be held accountable for “bullying tactics” that prompted players to break their contractual commitments.
“The NFL is once again acting like a corporate thug,” NFFC co-counsel Michael K. Hurst, “initiating a campaign to intimidate players away from this event because of its potential for success and in order to kill or control any profits.”
Says the release generally, without a quote attributed to any one person: “This is nothing more than the latest in a long history of disreputable actions and behavior presented by the League, from an iron-fisted approach to player conduct rarely reflective of the League’s own lack of self-discipline, to annual season ticket price hikes, the NFL continues to show little regard for the opinions and value of its players and fans.”
The press release concludes by reiterating that the NFFC intends to proceed with the event next year in L.A.