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In our last post – Valerie Thomas: Life Under Upshaw – former NFLPA Research Analyst and Paralegal Valerie Thomas discussed her years of abuse and violation of her employee’s rights under the heavy hand of departed Executive Director Gene Upshaw and his inner circle. Bob Grant had posted several questions to her in the comments section about the toll from her long battle with the NFLPA and how it has affected her and her family over the years. This is Part 2 of Valerie Thomas’ story.
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How time flies. It’s been over 6 months since NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell first announced his tour back in September to hear all about retired players’ grievances. (That story first appeared HERE.) You may remember that this tour was announced with great fanfare and press last year as Roger Goodell’s opportunity to speak and listen to the retired players across the country. If the reports have been accurate, it sounds like the Commish managed to visit a staggering 6 NFL cities out of a total of 32 teams (?!!) before all press releases stopped.
Jeff Nixon
Today on his blog, NFL Retired Players United, Jeff Nixon posts some publicly released information about some damning evidence that was instrumental in allowing the upcoming class action lawsuit against the NFLPA and its licensing subsidiary, Players, Inc. (click HERE to read the rest of Jeff’s post). Part of the key evidence that will be officially presented at trial in San Francisco on October 20, 2008, will be letters from the NFLPA and Players Inc. management to Electronic Arts (publishers of the wildly successful video game Madden NFL). The correspondence appears to show a long-standing conspiracy to defraud the majority of retired players by directing game developers to “disguise” the identities of retired stars in a blatant effort to avoid paying them any royalties. But like we keep saying, it’s often not the crime but the coverup that nails you. It looks like NFLPA may have been cooking the books as well in order to keep everything covered up. Small wonder Upshaw & Co. spent so much in legal fees trying to make sure the trial didn’t move forward.
