Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Pash: “I’m not convinced they want to see the numbers”

Jeff Pash, Greg Aiello, Jerry Richardson

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, left, Executive Vice-President and General Counsel Jeff Pash, and Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, arrive for football labor negotiations with the NFL players involving a federal mediator in, Wednesday, March 2, 2011, Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

AP

In a wide-ranging 20-minute interview on PFT Live, NFL’s lead negotiator Jeff Pash said he’s not convinced that the NFLPA* actually wants to see their financial statements.

“We went a long way towards satisfying their financial transparency demands,” Pash said. “Frankly, I’m not convinced they want to see the numbers. I think they like it better as an issue to whack us upside the head with then actually look at the numbers.”

Pash said the league was prepared to work with an agreed upon third party to give full audited financial team statements from the last five years. What exactly that third party would report on -- whether it was more than just generalized profits or not -- was uncertain.

We are going to be posting more quotes, analysis, and video from Pash’s segment throughout the day. With a weekend to digest everything that happened, Pash’s words were in general far less divisive and antagonistic towards the union than they were Friday. (The quote above was a notable exception.)

The words above, in fact, were about as divisive as it got. Jay Feely struck a similarly sober tone following Pash.

Hopefully that tone continues between the two sides in the coming weeks.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/33399756?launch=42075668" width="420" height="245" allowFullscreen="true” /]