Bandits say goodbye to AIFL

The Bandits' reign as AIFL champions is over, because the league and some other teams' owners used a relatively minor circumstance to put the team in a literal no-win situation. You'll probably never get two people to agree on any of the facts, but as best I can tell, here's what happened. Teams are supposed to exchange game film of their respective previous games the week before they play each other, and furthermore are supposed to send the tape the day after the game. Earlier this year, the Bandits didn't even receive the tape from the Rebels before the two teams played. After the Bandits' last game against the Vipers, knowing that they would play the Rebels next, the Bandits held on to their tape for a couple days in retribution. They did send the tape in the middle of last week, but again didn't even receive the Rebels' tape until the morning of the game! With this not being the first time that happened -- and having received no support from the league when complaining about it before -- the Bandits focused on actually preparing for a football game rather than bitching about the tape. The Rebels had different priorities.

Sometime late Monday morning, the Rebels' front office contacted the league, which in turn called the Bandits to inform them that they would have to pay a fine of (pulling a number out of thin air...) $3000 -- before kickoff that evening. Momentarily looking past the exorbitant amount of the fine, the Bandits mentioned that the Rebels were even later with their tape and should be fined too. The league said, in almost as many words, "I don't believe you. I make the decisions; you owe the fine and they don't." The Bandits knew they were being set up and chose to make a stand, declined to pay the fine, and accepted having to forfeit the playoff game to the Rebels.

It's no secret that the league has had its problems and at any given moment is in some degree of financial trouble. Yet the Bandits have always been a model franchise, paying their players on time, paying their rent to the Coliseum, paying the referees as they were supposed to, and still running a tight ship on game days and treating everyone with respect. The financial troubles of other teams is well documented, and the on- and off-field behavior of other organizations, while varying widely, often paled in comparison to the treatment they got when they came to Richmond. Clearly the league thought they could bully the Bandits into paying this trumped up fine (and $3000 worth of their own unpaid bills).

But the true motivation came from even deeper seated motives. Whether or not the league was out to get the Bandits, and if so to what extent, doesn't matter when you consider the vested interest the league has in some of its teams at the expense of others. The league owned, among other teams, the Rebels themselves, until earlier this season when they were sold to the same people who own the Renegades -- the only team to beat the Bandits this year and the team that had the most to lose if the Bandits continued in the playoffs. So it was equally the Renegades ownership that complained about the game tapes, had the ear of the league, and pushed for draconian punishment.

I've written and talked at length about the crap the AIFL has pulled in the past, and it's clear enough that they are not about fairness in any sense of the word. They put out a press release about this situation that I'm not even going to link because it's so full of spin and BS and half-truths. I will link to a Times-Dispatch article that furthers my belief that the Bandits are not wholly in the right either. It is admirable to an extent that they did take a stand against the league and forfeit on principle, but you have to consider the fans and the players, who would have played for free just for the chance to go out there and compete for a championship. The regular season would have been a much better setting for the moral high ground. Yet even in the regular season, and the biggest problem I have with this decision, the league would not have gotten the message. They don't understand principles and equality. You can't teach a lesson to someone who won't learn. Unfortunately, the losers in this case are the fans, the players and staff who put in so much time for the love of the game, and those who thought that by doing the right thing, we would avoid the underhandedness of the AIFL.