“What more is it going to take?”: Kimberley Martin criticizes the NFL and the failure of owners to kick Daniel Snyder out of his position
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Roger Goodell and Daniel Snyder
Daniel Snyder is in a lot of trouble. The owner of the Washington Commanders has been accused of sexual misconduct and assault on multiple women who worked in the organization, in addition to this, the team’s work culture and environment have been dubbed as toxic and largely conducive to misbehaving with women. Snyder was accused of harassment in 2009 by a woman to whom he paid $1.6 million to remain silent.
This is just one of the many instances that Snyder has attempted to keep in the dark and due to the numerous complaints, the Congress House Oversight Committee has been conducting a hearing during the course of which it has been determined that the owner fostered a toxic workplace and conducted a shadow investigation to target his accusers and pin the blame on others, and he has also attempted to influence the NFL’s own internal review process.
“Roger Goodell should be able to do more”: Kimberley Martin believes it is time for the NFL’s structure to get revamped
Snyder has also fired women but now men who engaged in relationships with other employees and has stood by his male counterparts who were accused of sexually harassing women. The entire report spans 29-pages and has numerous allegations levied against the Commanders owner. This report should be more than enough for Roger Goodell to be able to dismiss him from his ownership role but the Commissioner cannot do that due to the structure of the league.
ESPN First Take analyst Kimberley Martin believes the league’s structure needs some change and that the Commissioner needs to have power in exceptional circumstances to be able to remove owners from their position. “He(Roger Goodell) should do more, business savvy says the Commissioner of the NFL should do more, straight common sense says the Commissioner of the NFL should be positioned to have the authority to do more in such a situation as this. Of everything Roger Goodell said yesterday, the one thing that we know without a shadow of a doubt is true is that he cannot remove Daniel Snyder on his own, it’s the other owners. In a perfect world, Roger Goodell should be able to do something about this,” the analyst points out that even though the Commissioner may want to do more about this situation, his hands are tied, and he cannot really take many actions upon Snyder.
She goes on to talk about the 29-page Congressional Committee’s report on the Commanders’ owner that details all of his acts and justifies how it should be more than enough to convince the owners to remove Snyder. “The 29-page report says Dan Snyder was investigating not just anyone who he felt was a threat to him, journalists who were doing interviews about him, questioning people about him, attorneys, and employees trying to intimidate people. Roger Goodell should want to do more but he’s not enabled to do more and that is a failure of the structure of the NFL,” The ball is in the court of all the owners, Roger Goodell may himself be under pressure from all the owners to control this fire that Daniel Snyder has set.
“End of the day, it’s about the owners. What more is it going to take for 31 other owners to say that, ‘Daniel Snyder is a detriment to the shield,’ I don’t know what else is it going to take,” the analyst concludes. The owners are hesitant to make a move on Snyder as it may be seen as them backstabbing a member of their own. The other factor is that if they all vote to remove Snyder out today and tomorrow another owner ends up finding themself in a similar situation then they would have given the league precedent to remove them which they do not want to do.
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Sumedh Joshi
(2235 Articles Published)