NFL Players Association Decertifies

After an impasse in negotiations on Friday, the NFL players’ Association decided to decertify on Saturday.  As a result, NFL owners have locked out the league’s players, shutting down professional football for the first time in 24 years and ending an NFL peace deal which lasted since 1987, reports the Washington Post.

“We are locked out,” said Kevin Mawae, the former president of the decertified NFLPA. “We were informed today that players are no longer welcome at team facilities,” according to the Baltimore Sun.

With decertification, the NFLPA is no longer officially a union, but rather a trade association that can take legal action against the NFL. “By decertifying, the union has cleared the way for individual players to file antitrust lawsuits against the NFL, which opted out of the CBA in 2008. It has renounced its right to represent the players in contract bargaining,” according to NPR.

“A few NFL players, including Tom Brady, have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL,” Mike Pesca tells NPR. “It is a way to put pressure on the NFL. It is a way, perhaps, to get a court to rule against the NFL, to change the balance of power on their side.”

NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, said that although the fairest way to resolve the dispute was through mediation and negotiation, “They’ve chosen to pursue another strategy, and that is their choice,” he said.

On his end, John Mara of the New York Giants criticized the NFLPA for being inflexible “Their position has quite literally been ‘take it or leave it,’” he said to the Washington Post. The union left the negotiations table when the owners refused to hand over 10 years worth of financial data for individual teams.

Although there may still be hope for the 2011 season which is 6 months away, teams won’t be able to sign new players that they pick at next month’s draft, or conduct offseason training, reports The Guardian.

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