On November 22, I talked about the United Football League’s $150,000 Transfer Fee, which is embedded into Section 3(b)(iv) of the UFL Uniform Player Contract. The fee is only being applied to NFL teams that wish to sign a UFL player directly to their active rosters. It may be waived by the Commissioner of the UFL, as was done last year; however, Commissioner Huyghue has resisted any temptations to change course this year.
We now know that the Transfer Fee is affecting talented football players who wish to play in the NFL right now. It has been reported that former FSU tailback Lorenzo Booker was ready to sign with the Minnesota Vikings until the Vikings backed out when the UFL refused to waive the Transfer Fee.
My stance continues to be that there is no excuse for players and their agents to say that they did not know about the Transfer Fee; it is clearly embedded in the Uniform Player Contract that each UFL player signed prior to competing in this year’s championship season. Will the UFL suffer because of its hard-line stance regarding this fee? Quite possibly. Maybe it will deter players from going the UFL route in the future. But the fact of the matter is that the clause existed prior to the start of this season, so players with knowledge of that provision who felt it could negatively affect them should have considered it prior to executing the contract.
One reply on “UFL’s $150,000 Transfer Fee Has A Victim”
Seems to me that the real issue remains whether or not he clause should be enforced. Have any of these players even taken the position that they didn’t know about the clause?