The OneTeam Partners controversy involving NFLPA, MLBPA becomes a bit more clear

Various vague reports have emerged in recent weeks regarding a controversy of some sort involving OneTeam Partners and the NFL Players Association. A new item from TheAthletic.com provides more details on the issue that has reportedly attracted the attention of the FBI.

It started last summer, when the eight-person board of OneTeam Partners, co-owned by the players associations for five major sports leagues, adopted a plan to give the member union "profit units." Those units could be converted eventually to cash.

The proposal sparked concerns within the NFL Players Association that labor officials on the OneTeam board (including NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell and MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark) could secure personal gain over and above their union-approved compensation packages.

The resolution, obtained by TheAthletic.com, contemplated that the payments from the so-called "Senior Employee Incentive Plan" would go to the unions, which could then give the money to Howell and/or Clark.

An unnamed NFLPA official reportedly criticized the plan, writing that "[t]he explicit goal throughout the process was to financially enrich the individuals who serve on the [OneTeam] Board as labor organization representatives. . . . [T]he idea was to pay the money into the unions, then the individuals.”

OneTeam said in a statement to TheAthletic.com that the plan was ultimately abandoned.

If the plan was scrapped, it makes the existence of an FBI investigation even more confusing — unless the authorities are exploring whether a conspiracy had been formed to reach an illegal outcome. Even if the potentially illicit goal wasn't achieved, a single "overt act" toward its completion is potentially enough to give rise to the existence of a potentially illegal conspiracy.

The new article mentions on several occasions an unnamed NFLPA official who seemed to be very aggressive in his/her efforts to thwart the OneTeam plan. A recent item from Daniel Kaplan of AwfulAnnouncing.com indicated that long-time NFLPA in-house counsel Heather McPhee has engaged in whistleblower activities related to the situation.

In a memo sent to the NFLPA executive committee in late May, McPhee said that she had been instructed to stop working on anything related to OneTeam Partners.

Obviously, it's possible that McPhee is the unnamed official in the new story from TheAthletic.com. If not, the union may have two employees who have potentially acquired legal protection as whistleblowers.

As the old saying goes, the coverup is often worse than the crime. In this case, it seems that there are two key questions — was there a conspiracy that was abandoned, and is there now an effort to cover up the potential existence of that conspiracy?