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NFLPA amended Constitution in 2022 to keep executive director candidates secret

The NFL Players Association’s Constitution has a clause requiring the names of the finalists for the executive director position to be provided to the player representatives at least 30 days before the election. It has another clause that essentially allows that clause, and any others, to be ignored.

Article 9.01 of the Constitution allows the Constitution to be “amended at any regularly scheduled or special meeting of the Board of Representatives by a vote of two-thirds (2/3) of the votes cast by the members of the Board present at such meeting.”

On July 13, 2022, the Board of Player Representatives amended the Constitution to allow the selection to proceed without the player representatives receiving the roster of finalists at least 30 days before the meeting.

We have requested a copy of the amendment, which makes the relevant provision of the Constitution meaningless. The union has not yet provided it, and it’s unclear whether the union will. Regardless, the amendment resulted in no meaningful opportunity for the player representatives to research the finalists before the vote, and it gave the rank and file zero advance information regarding the candidates for the job.

As we previously have explained, the union benefits from the fact that the players generally don’t care about these issues. Some tried to get information from their elected representatives over the weekend, but the representatives were in the dark. Now we know why; last July, they agreed to be kept in the dark, in order to advance a misguided (in my opinion) obsession with confidentiality.

We’ll have more on the confidentiality angle later. For now, the point is that the union planned a year ago for what occurred this week, creating an amendment that made the relevant Constitutional provision meaningless.

Even if they hadn’t done it last year, they could have done it this week. Article 9.02 essentially allows the union to change the Constitution on the fly, to suit whatever goal they might be trying to achieve, as long as two-thirds of the representatives vote in favor of essentially disregarding the Constitution.

The good news is that we’ve identified something the NFLPA has in common with the NFL. Like the league, the union has the power — and the will — to make the rules up as they go.