“FREE OR NOT TO FREE”… THAT IS THE QUESTION

An Editorial: by Jared Neumeier

“My country tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty, of thee I sing…”

RMFL – One football player wants to play for a different team…

And isn’t it all really about “Liberty”?

Are RMFL players truly “Free Americans”, or not!??!

Is the business of financial compensation for players who leave one team for another justified?

My personal answers:

No… not “all about” Liberty, anyway

Yes!

No.

The issue of players changing teams has been an issue since the early days of the RMFL. In fact, the founding fathers saw the potential problems and incorporated specific language in the RMFL constitution to, hopefully, deter player movement problems.

The original verbiage in the RMFL Constitution still stands today, and states:

“Teams may recruit any player(s) regardless of past experience. However, any player(s) who wants to transfer to a different (non-expansion or expansion team in market saturated area*) team but had in the immediate past year been with a former team must receive permission from their former team plus the team they are transferring to before they can play with that different team. If a player does not receive permission from both of these teams, that player will have to sit out a minimum of 3 regular season games before he can play with his new team (these 3 games apply to the current season and do not count retroactively back to the prior season)*. However, if a player is transferring to a brand new team in the league, or if a player's team has broken up, or if a player has moved to a new town, that player may transfer without permission.”

Ignoring for a moment the clause written in the parenthesis (non-expansion or expansion team in market saturated area), the rest is original Constitution wording.

What we were ultimately concerned with was good players from an area leaving their current teams to all join up with the same team, creating some kind of “super-team” shifting the balance of power to the extent that real competition would be diminished and the true enjoyment of the league reduced… for ALL players.

This concern has not dissipated.

Today’s RMFL still needs to be concerned about parity and ensuring that all of our best players don’t just band together and join some “super-team”. If this league is really about the players… which it is, it has to be about ALL of the players, not just a select few who want to play wherever they want, for whatever reason they want.

Of course, today’s concerns are more owner-related, than player. In 1997, there was no such thing as a team “Owner” or even a “General Manager. A lot of us actually thought it was pretty funny when the Great Falls Rangers joined the league and the guy running their team called himself the “owner”. Since that time, as the league has evolved, the title of “owner” and/or “general manager” has become more commonplace and taken upon more meaning and value around the league.

However, we must refrain from drawing assumptions upon what an “owner” actually “owns”.

What they DO “own” is franchise rights. What they do NOT own is… players… free Americans.

In 99% of the cases that come across my desk regarding player movement, the players seem justified and should probably simply be allowed to go.

For those of you who disagree, I could always humm a few bars of the song heading this article and you could all join me for the chorus.

However, I believe, if there wasn’t some kind of Checks and Balances in place, we could be looking at some serious player transfer issues and problems.

Can’t any of you think of at least one of our team owners/GM’s that wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever they had to do… to lure whoever they wanted over to their team, including waiving player fees, provide free equipment, free transportation and even some financial rewards to lure quality players to their teams.

Some would even be happy to pay $100 to the guys current team for certain players. In today’s RMFL, when some team budgets run more than $10,000 per season, $100 is chump change for the right players.

And the worst abomination of the system of all… some teams have suggested that the PLAYERS should pay this blood money… for their own freedom!

There will be an agenda item in the February meeting, discussion and a vote on the Player Movement rule. The rule may very well change.

If I had a vote, I would be the first to vote out the $100 “Saturated Market” rule. That particular rule was an old UFL carryover from the rules and associated politics of that league when those teams joined up with the RMFL. I didn’t like the rule then, I don’t like it now. Volunteer players are not property to be bought and sold and bargained with. Certainly, no one should try to profit because a player doesn’t want to play for you anymore and wants to play for someone else.

To coin one of my wife’s expressions, “that’s just NUTS!”

HOWEVER, I also do not believe we can move forward without any constitutional means to check player movement.

It might seem a little self-serving, except for the fact that I have set my own limits to my RMFL Commissioner mortality already, but I would propose the following:

After the final RMFL game for a team until the official roster is turned in to the league a week before the start of the season, players are free to change teams…

HOWEVER, if an owner/GM has a case as to why a particular player or players should not be allowed to change teams, they can petition the RMFL to block the move. A team change may be blocked under the following criteria:

1) the player owes the team something AND it can be legally proven by producing a lease contract (for equipment or uniforms). The RMFL will not act in situations where the player owes the team money. If a player is supposed to pay team fees and doesn’t, the RMFL will expect that the team in question will simply not allow the player to play. IF YOU ALLOW A PLAYER TO PLAY AND YOU BELIEVE HE OWE’S YOU MONEY, THEN IN THE EYES OF THE LEAGUE, YOU HAVE RELEASED HIM FROM ALL FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS. If you do not let him play…then he doesn’t really owe players fees.

2) The team losing player(s) can show that they are losing too many players to other team(s) and would not be able to be competitive.

3) More than one franchise/all-star level player are leaving their team to go to the same team.

That’s it. Otherwise, let freedom ring!

To explain each restriction:

Clause #1 should be self-explanatory.

Clause #2 is in place to prevent the destruction of a single team at the hands of another team. One of the things I heard was a problem in the Salt Lake area for years is just this. Players were constantly changing teams and the member teams could not build up continuity. This problem can really lead to a loss of credibility for the league in a particular market area. If players were able to leave a given team, en masse each year, ALL teams from that area would struggle with credibility.

Clause #3 is there to prevent a targeted recruitment of one team by another. One franchise might not attempt to lure a large enough amount of players from their team to qualify for a Clause #2 block, but it might be they try to take more than 1 of their franchise type players or stars. For reference, this is what almost happened between Idaho Falls and Pocatello in 2005.

For those who are new to the league or not aware of the situation, Pocatello’s 3 all-stars from 2004 suddenly decided to play for the Idaho Falls Mustangs in 2005. Whether they were “recruited” or not is not the point. Just as players are free Americans to do what they like, owners and GM’s are certainly free Americans as well to try to convince quality players to play for their teams… What are hope, of course, is that players and owners a like will conduct themselves in a manner befitting respect to other teams, the league office and all of the other players around the league.

It just doesn’t always happen.

For the record, had the system I propose been in place, I would have no okayed the move of one teams three All-Stars to another team. It would have been a clear clause 3 violation. I would have allowed the Mustangs to choose one of them, the other two would have been given the option to play for their own team and re-apply the next season or sit a year.

Although I would have ruled it that way, as it turned out, only one of the players, Travis Boden had an impact season for the Mustangs. T.J. Bingham rarely played and Dennis Rinehart was not even a full-time starter. However, what would have been the fate of the two teams, had the three players not changed teams? Hmmm.

Even having said all of this; I know we all hope that players will simply feel a dedication to their team and their teammates to not even make the moving of players from one team to another an issue at all. This should be the exception; not the rule.

So we can do one of three things.

One. Business as usual. Don’t change the rule, let the current rule serve to deter the problems associated with free player movement.

Two. Abolish the player movement rule entirely. Allow players to freely move between teams at their will. They are not paid employees.

Three. Change the rule somehow to accommodate all of the points made herein… perhaps switch to an RMFL League Office appeal system in situations where any of the previous mentioned guidelines are violated.

On February 18^th, the Rocky Mountain Football League Managing Board will have its final say.

We ARE in the United States of America… so democracy will rule.

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