Washington D.C.’s football franchise often finds itself in the NFL’s crosshairs.
Between the name change battle, numerous lawsuits and investigations into workplace treachery, and on-the-field performance, the Washington football team has been in disarray for the better part of a decade. And yet, there hasn’t been the type of sizable change at the top that generally comes with the woeful mismanagement of a professional sports franchise in America.
But perhaps this is the thing that might bring ๊down Daniel Sny🐼der:
Exclusive from me and : The House Oversight Committee tells the Federal Trade Commission that the Commanders and Daniel Snyder “may have engaged in a troubling, long-running, and potentially unlawful pattern of financial conduct."…
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske)
Reporting from the Washington Post shares details from a U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee that levies some serious allegations against the Washington Commanders organization. The 20-page letter the Post reports on includes allegations that the franchise mౠight have been withholding cash that was supposed to be shared with the rest of the NFL. A former employee shared with the Committee that the team kept two sets of books in order to hide the cashflow.
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Here’s an example of how the “juice” ꦫpractice allegedly worked. Fri🎃edman told the Committee that he “falsely processed” $162,360 in Commanders ticket revenue as arising from a Navy-Notre Dame game at FedEx Field. The team’s former chief financial officer, Steven Choi, allegedly directed Friedman to do it this way, in a May 6, 2014 email.
“So this is the two sets of books,” Friedman told the Committee,𒉰 based on the letter obtained by the Post. “So in this particular case, there’s a set of books that’s submitted to the NFL that doesn’t include the $162,000, but then there’s a set of books that’s kept internally shown to Mr. Snyder and Mr. Snyder’s — I believe just Mr. Snyder, actually, and the people ܫin his inner circle maybe, that shows what we actually did, which would include the $162,000 of juice.”
If Friedman has documents to back up his claim, that’s a major problem for the organization and for Snyder. Likewise, it’s impossible for the league to remain quiet about thi﷽s — even if some in the league office would likely prefer that nothing come of it.
Egads! Washington cooking its own books would be a bad look for the team and the league. And with this latest fiasco reaching the federal level, the NFL can’t afford to just sit on its hands and let the process play out. So, we’ll see where this goes.
