National Football League

NFL says it offered union more info

Published Mar. 9, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

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The NFL's lead labor negotiator says the league offered to give the players' union financial information that the league doesn't even give its 32 clubs.

On his way into Wednesday's mediation session, NFL general counsel Jeff Pash said the issue of financial transparency — a key sticking point in labor talks this week — ''really should be behind us.''

''We've made more information available in the course of this negotiation than has ever been made available in decades of collective bargaining with the NFLPA,'' Pash said. ''Far more information. And we've offered to make even more information (available), including information that we do not disclose to our own clubs.''

The current collective bargaining agreement was set to expire last week, but two extensions now have pushed the cutoff to the end of Friday.

Although progress has been made, both sides have stuck to their stances when it comes to two central issues: The NFLPA has not agreed to any major economic concessions; the NFL has not agreed to the union's long-held demand that the league completely open its books.

The NFL Players Association retained a global investment bank to help it decide whether the league's offer to reveal more financial information during negotiations will be enough to satisfy the union's call for full disclosure.

With various issues under discussion, the crux of the labor dispute is how to split $9 billion in annual revenues. NFLPA executive committee member Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita said Tuesday that what the NFL has turned over to the union so far ''hasn't been sufficient.

Another executive committee member, Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday, said as he left Tuesday's 9 1/2-hour mediation session that the bank would ''help judge how helpful the material they were offering to give us'' would be.

''I don't think there should be any issue of disclosure, I don't think there should be any issue of transparency,'' Pash said. ''I don't think there should be any issue of who knows what.''