[ad_1]
A bipartisan group in Congress wants to create a new federal law that would force the NCAA to change the way it investigates and punishes member schools that break the association’s rules.
Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) believes the NCAA’s enforcement process is inefficient and unfair. He has teamed with Reps. Burgess Owens(R-UT) and Josh Harder (D-Calif.) to introduce a bill Tuesday that would create a statute of limitations on NCAA violations, place limits on how long the NCAA has to complete its investigations and give schools an option to appeal any sanctions they receive to a third-party arbitrator.
“The NCAA is a monopoly with no oversight,” Kustoff told ESPN. “The NCAA acts as investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. [Our bill] sets up a framework. The NCAA can still do their jobs, but with more constraints.”
The proposal is designed to make the NCAA’s process more closely resemble the criminal justice system. It includes a statute of limitations that would prohibit the NCAA from punishing a school for any violation that occurred more than two years earlier in an effort to avoid punishing current athletes for the misdeeds of others.
The proposal also gives schools the ability to ask for a three-person panel of neutral arbitrators to review and adjust any punishments that the school believes are unfair. The NCAA’s current rules do allow for an appeal in some cases, but the appeals process is run by a committee that is made up mostly of individuals from member schools.
The bill arrives one day after a group of 74 athletic directors from FBS-level schools sent a letter to the NCAA recommending a long list of changes to its enforcement process. The letter criticized the recently formed unit of the NCAA’s enforcement arm that is designed to take on complex cases for its lack of efficiency. It also asked the NCAA to consider changes that would help mitigate the perception that some investigators are biased and to dole out punishments that impact…
[ad_2]
Source : espn
