Football, Flores sues the NFL for racism: mistaken identity in a text message

On the day when Tom Brady formalizes his retirement after 22 triumphal seasons, the NFL finds itself in the eye of the storm. Brian Flores, former Miami manager, has in fact filed a class action against the league for racial discrimination. It all started with a series of text messages sent to Flores by mistake by Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, convinced that he was talking to another Brian, Daboll, former deputy of the Buffalo Bills.

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Belichick sends Flores – though he thinks he has sent the message to Daboll – a text message in which he congratulates his former assistant on becoming the new head coach of the New York Giants. Flores, surprised, replies that in reality he hasn’t had the interview yet. At that point the doubt arises that Belichick is convinced that he is talking to Daboll. Having clarified the misunderstanding, he realizes that the Giants have already chosen their head coach and that his interview will be nothing more than a formality to carry out what is known as the “Rooney Rule”, which obliges the Nfl franchises to take into account. consideration of minority coaches. Flores is African American, Daboll is instead white.

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At that point Flores decides to sue the NFL. “Even when black candidates are hired for head coach positions, a rarity, they are discriminated against in relation to the terms and conditions of their employment and their remuneration – reads between the 58 pages of the lawsuit – and fired much more frequently than to white coaches also far less successful ”.

Flores then decided to spill the beans. Also recounting what happened in his two years at the Dolphins, with owner Stephen Ross offering him $ 100,000 for every game he lost, so that Miami would reach the bottom of the standings at the end of the season and could secure the first overall pick in the next draft. Flores claims GM Chris Grier told him that Ross was furious about the Dolphins’ victories and that he was jeopardizing the team’s draft position in doing so. The coach was surprisingly sacked from Miami last January 10 despite having closed both seasons with a positive balance (10-6 and 9-8), the first two consecutive winning years for the Dolphins since 2003. The NFL is thus at the center of another case of racism after that of Colin Kaepernick a few years ago which started a mass protest which then extended to European football and the “Black Lives Matter” movement.