Post by TheShadow on Jul 5, 2008 14:45:20 GMT -5
mvn.com
By Anthony Brown
A story on SportingNews.com says that a committee of players pushed the National Football League Players Association executive board to look for a replacement for Gene Upshaw.
Gene Upshaw has been the executive director of the NFLPA since 1983 and has been a participant in negotiations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and extensions between players and owners since 1977. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987 after a 16 year career with the Oakland Raiders where he was a six time Pro Bowler.
He is also a vice president of the AFL-CIO.
Pro football players have seen a dramatic rise in income under Upshaw’s leadership. Although he has led and threatened strikes, Upshaw is renowned for an uncommon working relationship with the owners and NFL commissioners Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell in a text book case of union - management cooperation for the benefit of an industry.
Baltimore Ravens kicker Matt Stover advocates replacing Upshaw by next March, according to an April 8, 2008 story on Yahoo Sports. Stover’s efforts were thought not reflective of most players, but the union now has a search committee in place.
Upshaw is 62, just the time for succession planning. His contract with the NFLPA ends at an awkward time in 2010. That will be an uncapped year if the union and owners don’t reach a new agreement on the CBA. The owners opted out of the 2006 extension of the agreement saying the players were getting too high a percentage of the revenue.
The players and the executive board may prefer someone who can be held accountable for the next round of negotiations rather than a lame duck as Upshaw will be. Paul Tagliabue closed out his career as commissioner negotiating the 2006 extension with Upshaw. I suspect the union did not like what it saw in that.
Upshaw may not be in sync with the players. He denounced Roger Goodell’s statement about rookie salaries. The SportingNews.com story says that veteran players seem to want the restrictions.