Georges St. Pierre's lawyer describes UFC contract as 'slavery'
James Quinn, legal representative of Georges St. Pierre, has some harsh words for the binding terms found in UFC contracts.
Georges St. Pierre and his lawyer James Quinn aren’t pulling any punches when taking their legal battle with the UFC public. The former welterweight title holder let the world know that he’s a free agent while speaking to Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. His legal representative, Quinn, backed that up with some strong claims on Wednesday.
“I’ve done a lot of work in sports. When I read that contract, I was blown away by how restrictive it is,” Quinn said as reported by Shaun Al-Shatti of MMA Fighting. “They’re basically tying him up for life. They have no rights and they own all of his licensing and all the other things. It’s unheard of in the other professional sports. And they won’t get away with it forever.”
Quinn is well-respected in the sports world as he’s led cases against major sports bodies such as the NBA and NHL. It’s that expertise that’s led him to talk so negatively about the contracts binding fighters to the UFC.
“You couldn’t get away with any old contract in any of the other sports,” Quinn said. “I don’t think the contract — that formal contract — is likely to stand up. Not in today’s world. It’s a pretty nice form of slavery.”
Leadership within the UFC didn’t take long to respond to GSP’s claim of being a free agent. The organization released a statement to ESPN that counters his claim of being open to negotiations with other MMA promotions.
“Georges St-Pierre remains under an existing agreement with [UFC parent company] Zuffa, LLC as his MMA promoter. Zuffa intends to honor its agreement with St-Pierre and reserves its rights under the law to have St-Pierre do the same.”
This is perhaps one of the biggest wrinkles in how the MMA free agency developments have played out in 2016. Fighters such as Benson Henderson, Rory MacDonald, Lorenz Larkin and others have decided to take their chances and entertain deals from other companies rather than re-signing with the UFC. Georges St. Pierre is widely considered one of the best fighters to ever step into the Octagon, and getting him away from the UFC would be the biggest free agency signing to date.
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