Wisconsin Sues Miami Over Poaching a Player

[Toe]

Not directly Husker related, but a CFB-wide issue...

The University of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday claiming Miami's football team broke the law by tampering with a Badgers player, a first-of-its-kind legal attempt to enforce the terms of a financial contract between a football player and his school.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/45552578/wisconsin-sues-miami-tampering-football-transfer

 

[Mavric]

[No message]

 

[macroboy]

I’m curious to see how this plays out. The way all this NIL and settlement stuff plays out will be decided by court case precedent. Unless the government gets involved.

This lawsuit is Big vs another conference. What happens when a Big team does this to another Big team?

 

[RedDenver]

This will continue until there's a collective bargaining agreement.

 

[hskrpwr13]

Don't know if the lawsuit will be successful, but I appreciate the effort.

While a positive result would not keep a player at the school that owns the contract (and why would the school want a potentially now disgruntled player?), it would probably make it more expensive for a school to poach a player under contract. Unsure how penalties would be determined.

IMO, this isn't the same as a player be constrained by either accepting the terms of a scholarship or forfeiting the chance to play college football. In this case the player made a legitimate decision to accept terms of a contract (i.e. a contractor), for which he could've waited for a better offer instead. 

 

[teachercd]

I will be shocked if anything comes of this.

 

[hskrpwr13]

This will continue until there's a collective bargaining agreement.

Youre probably correct. I'm more interested in the legality of the contracts. Is there anything that is constraining/restraining from requiring a financial contract to play college football? And if one breaks/walks-away from the contract, is there really any penalty to enforce, outside perhaps paying back any provided funds?

 

[RedDenver]

Youre probably correct. I'm more interested in the legality of the contracts. Is there anything that is constraining/restraining from requiring a financial contract to play college football? And if one breaks/walks-away from the contract, is there really any penalty to enforce, outside perhaps paying back any provided funds?

I'm not a lawyer, but I know some. The main issue as I understand it is tortious interference with a contract, so not necessarily the issues you're mentioning but rather whether Miami broke the law for interfering with a contract they are not part of.