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Congress demands NFL pays $18 million bill

Roger Goodell Gareon Conley

The NFL still owes $18 million on a five-year agreement with the National Institutes of Health stemming from a concussion research program conducted by the two organizations.

Back in 2012, the NFL announced that it would be handing NIH $30 million to help the Institutes study the long-term impact of head-related trauma in the sport. With a month left to pay the bill, the NFL still owes over half of that $30 million.

Now, according to Deadspin, Congress wants answers.

“A group of Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a letter to commissioner Roger Goodell, demanding to know the league’s plans for completing the payment,” the report read.

This comes about 14 months after a report came out indicating that the NFL itself was attempting to influence the NIH’s study.

“The 91-page report describes how the NFL pressured the National Institutes of Health to strip the $16 million project from a prominent Boston University researcher and tried to redirect the money to members of the league’s committee on brain injuries,” the May 2016 report read. “The study was to have been funded out of a $30 million ‘unrestricted gift’ the NFL gave the NIH in 2012.”

So, let’s get this straight. Just last year, the NFL attempted to influence the NIH study to include members of the league’s own committee on health. It did so after promising $30 million to the Institutes. Now, a year later, the NFL still has not paid the cash to an outside organization without any self interest.

“With little more than a month remaining in the initial five-year agreement establishing SHRP, the NFL has yet to contribute the remaining $18 million pledged to support research into health issues affecting athletes through NIH,” the letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reads.

The league did respond, telling the Washington Post that “it is in constructive discussions” with the NIH.

That sounds about right.

The NFL itself has a track record of attempting to sweep issues pertaining to CTE and other head-related injuries under the rug.

And while recent trends seem to indicate the league is moving forward to modern times on this issue, this letter from Congress is a reminder of just how out of touch the NFL itself is.

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