According to the 20-page letter sent by the House Oversight and Reform Committee to the Federal Trade Commission, Snyder and the Governors “may be involved in a worrying, long-term and potentially illegal pattern of economic behavior.” This is said to involve the Commanders withholding up to $ 5 million in returned deposits from season ticket holders. The letter also claims that Washington hid money that was to be distributed among the owners of the NFL. The allegations were made by Jason Friedman, who has been Vice President of Sales and Customer Service for Commanders for 24 years. Friedman reportedly gave an account to the committee drafted by a previous Front Office Sports report, saying the franchise had “two sets of books,” one of which included declared ticket revenue. These were reportedly retained by former CFO Stephen Choi and another employee. The letter also alleges that Washington allegedly misappropriated the proceeds, saying the money came from events such as a Navy-Notre Dame college football game at FedExField and a Kenny Chesney concert. Friedman told the committee that he “falsely processed” more than $ 162,000 of Commanders NFL game tickets as coming from the Navy-Notre Dame game. The money from these events would not be part of the NFL pool and the money earned through this method was known internally as “juice”. Ticket revenue is expected to be split between the 32 NFL teams, with 40% deposited in a group guest box. Friedman also provided the commission with documents showing that Washington was holding back security deposits from customers who had purchased multi-year season tickets for certain seats that should have been returned. Governors have previously denied any financial misconduct. “The team categorically rejects any suggestion of financial inadequacy of any kind at any time,” the governors said in a statement on March 31, according to the Washington Post. “We follow strict internal procedures that comply with industry and accounting standards, are audited annually by a globally recognized independent auditing firm, and are also subject to regular audits by the NFL. We continue to work closely with the Commission.” On Tuesday, an NFL spokesman gave a statement to NFL Media regarding the allegations in the letter. “We continue to work with the Supervisory Board and have provided more than 210,000 pages of documents. The NFL has hired former SEC President Mary Jo White to reconsider the serious issues raised by the committee.” ESPN’s John Keim spoke with MP Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Who was one of the signatories to the letter. He said: “Honestly, as you look at the allegations, it reads like a description of an organization other than the Godfather and not an NFL football team. It really helps to paint the culture and impunity described by other witnesses and evidence of serious malfunction.” The committee sent the letter to the FTC to provide it with the information and documents necessary to determine if Governors have violated FTC law. According to Friedman, Snyder and Washington could be in hot water.
