TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor joins Jermaine Franklin to discuss where things are going from here, after the preliminary CBA agreement between the CFL and CFLPA was rejected on Monday. Here’s the latest for a strange situation in the Canadian Football League.
Franklin: Last Wednesday we thought we had a deal. Now it seems we are not doing it. What happened?
Naylor: We say we’ve seen everything in CFL. Well, obviously not, because we are in unexplored waters on this issue. Several things happened. I think you have to first acknowledge that the CFLPA union leadership has one of the most difficult jobs in all sports. They need to negotiate for the CBA, while representing the interests of Canadian and American players. Which are not always arranged. And a few things in the deal here seemed more favorable to American players. They received, say, extended post-career health benefits. Well, this is a bigger problem for American players than for Canadian players, due to social medicine and healthcare in Canada.
You know, the ratio that guarantees seven Canadian team starters has essentially been returned to five and a half. So again, this was a victory for American players rather than Canadian players. That is why Canadian players are believed to have rejected the deal. We don’t know that. This is a secret ballot. But people are guessing because they’re looking at the deal, and there seems to be more to it for American players than for Canadian players. In particular, the issue of the ratio is very sensitive, and the other, we continue to hear that players were expecting a ratification bonus. Some leagues will keep this carrot there. Hey, if you sign this new CBA, everyone gets a check. From our reports, we cannot find that this was ever discussed at the negotiating table between the league and the Players’ Association. But some players expected to get that. They didn’t, and that’s obviously part of it, too.
Franklin: Where do we go from here?
Naylor: There are a few things that can happen, all sorts of possibilities. I think the union can strike again, that would be one. The owners could lock them up. And then you have to think about the moment of it. This Friday there are pre-season games, which are usually very good for the owners because they collect full ticket prices but do not pay the full salaries of the players. Can players hit these games? Whose interest would it be to postpone the start of the regular season? Will the owners lock them up at some point? And the other is that the owners are accommodating and feeding players in their training places at the moment. And they told the players that in the event of a work stoppage, we will continue to accommodate and feed you, but I don’t know if with this last turn, which will definitely last. We don’t know if there will be a training session this week.
There are so many unknowns right now, and I really think it will depend to some extent on what the players decide to do first, and then we’ll see what the owners do next. Will they both return immediately to the negotiating table together? I am not necessarily sure that both sides will be willing to do that. They followed the process as planned. The other issue we also need to think about is the leadership of the union. This is not just a rejection of a deal. This is a rejection of your union leadership, which has negotiated this deal, and of the players who recommended you vote for it. So this is chaos.
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