The Raiders, in a 17-word statement, said goodbye to interim team president Dan Ventrelle on Friday. Ventrelle later said a lot more, claiming that he was fired after sharing concerns raised by employees who had complained about the behavior of owner Mark Davis in the workplace.
The NFL quickly responded, vowing to investigate. Davis, while officially not commenting on Ventrelle’s statement, said plenty about Ventrelle’s former job.
“I’ve heard about [Ventrelle’s statement], but I won’t comment on it,” Davis said, via Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The only thing I want made clear is that Dan Ventrelle was never president of the Raiders. He has always been the interim president. . . . The interim was always a temporary designation to determine whether he would be the [full-time] president or not. . . . He is not the president of the Las Vegas Raiders. Never was.”
The title doesn’t matter. Ventrelle worked for the team for nearly 18 years. He served as General Counsel before replacing Marc Badain as the president. Interim or otherwise, Ventrelle undoubtedly planned to keep working for the team. If his abrupt departure was motivated in whole or in part by communicating concerns raised by employees to Davis and/or the league office, it’s irrelevant that he was the interim team president.
Ventrelle’s statement suggests that litigation is coming. Undoubtedly, Davis would try to shift any such action to the NFL’s in-house secret rigged kangaroo court.
