Posted in: Sports, TV | Tagged: Oliver Luck, Vince McMahon, xfl
The Shocking Reasons Vince McMahon Fired XFL's Oliver Luck Revealed
Vince McMahon and his legal team have delivered that promised legal response to fired XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck's wrongful termination lawsuit, and you won't believe the reason Vince says he fired him. Luck filed a lawsuit against McMahon last month, claiming McMahon breached his contract. He was fired from his job as commissioner of the XFL four days before the XFL ceased operations and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 13th. At the time, McMahon's lawyers said that Luck was fired for cause and that they would soon elaborate on why. Now, Sports Business Journal has obtained a copy of McMahon's legal filing, and they've named three reasons McMahon gave for why Luck's termination had good cause.
First, of all, the response reportedly claims that Luck left the XFL offices in Connecticut and returned home on March 13th, where he allegedly "disengage[d] from the XFL's operations." Luck allegedly didn't tell Vince McMahon about it, and the filing says, "Put simply, at the very moment when his leadership as CEO was needed most, Luck did not devote substantially all of his business time to the XFL, as required by his contract." Secondly, according to the report, Luck was supposed to avoid hiring any players with negative legal histories without seeking McMahon's approval first. However, he hired Antonio Callaway with a $125,000 signing bonus and then allegedly "failed to promptly terminate Callaway in accordance with McMahon's instructions," which the filing calls "gross negligence" and claims cost the league "in excess of six figures." And as icing on the cake, the third and possibly most shocking reason is that Luck allegedly used his XFL iPhone for non-work-related matters.
The filing goes on to reportedly reveal that Luck was owed $7 million a year in his contract, which was apparently personally guaranteed by McMahon. That's why Luck is able to sue McMahon directly for the money even though the XFL itself has filed for bankruptcy. We'll have to see how things work out when and if this case makes it to court.