“Run like a plantation”
NFL threatens racism earthquake after lawsuit
2/2/2022 11:06 am
Head coach Brian Flores will be fired from the Miami Dolphins at the end of January. He’s quickly a candidate for another team, the New York Giants. A text message makes Flores question the sincerity of the job offer. Now he’s suing the NFL and three teams. That could trigger an earthquake.
After his release from the Miami Dolphins, football coach Brian Flores is suing the NFL and three teams for discrimination. The league is “in a way racially segregated and run like a plantation,” the indictment said: “The 32 team owners – none of them black – benefit significantly from the work of the NFL players, 70 percent of whom are black. ” The NFL has denied the allegations.
“God gave me the special gift of being a football coach,” Flores said in a statement on the first day of Black History Month. “But the need for change is greater than my personal goal.” The 40-year-old is aware that his decision to file the lawsuit is jeopardizing his career.
Flores filed its lawsuit Tuesday in a district court in upstate New York. “The owners watch the games from their luxury boxes in the stadiums, while their mostly black employees put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking nasty blows and suffering serious injuries to their bodies and brains,” Flores’ lawyers wrote. Meanwhile, the NFL and team owners would make millions of dollars from the spectacle.
In addition to his former club, the black coach also takes on the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos, where he was considered a candidate but didn’t get the job. Flores attached an alleged chat history with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to the lawsuit. This would prove that the interview with the Giants was only scheduled to meet the league’s requirement. According to the so-called “Rooney Rule”, teams must select at least two candidates who belong to a social minority for open coaching positions.
NFL wants to fight back
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin currently has only one black head coach in the NFL. Five of the 27 teams are currently without a head coach after the season that ended with the Super Bowl in mid-February. Since the Rooney Rule was introduced in 2003, only 15 of the 129 vacant head coaching positions have been filled by black coaches, the lawsuit said. It also claims that black head coaches “are kept on short leashes and have only been in office for a very short time” compared to white candidates “with few exceptions”.
The case is set up as a class action lawsuit. “My sincere hope is that others will join us in taking a stand against systemic racism in the NFL to bring about change for generations to come,” said Flores, longtime scout for the New England Patriots. The NFL responded immediately, saying it was “deeply” committed to “fair employment practices” with its clubs and “continued to make progress on equal opportunity within our organization.” “Diversity is at the core of our work,” there are few issues that clubs and league leadership would deal with more extensively, the NFL wrote: “We will defend ourselves against these unfounded allegations.”