The Bills owner Terry Pegula is under intense scrutiny after a bombshell lawsuit filed by former veteran reporter Jim Trotter earlier this week.
The NFL Network terminated the employment status of Trotter after he continued to speak up about an alleged racist incident, played out in front of 40 NFL media newsroom employees.
Pegula reportedly said, “If the Black players don’t like it here, they should go back to Africa and see how bad it is.”
This incident was said to have happened on September 3, 2020, in the peak of the Black Lives Matter social discourse.
“This remark was so offensive and racist that the people in the meeting appeared to be frozen, unsure how to even react,” explains Trotter in the court papers filed Tuesday.
Trotter claims he spoke up and asked the league if there would be a discussion about Mr. Pegula’s remarks but was told the league was investigating the matter. He continued that he often asked the league for updates and was always given short shrift.
After a year, he was told this was now an HIR matter, which Trotter did not find acceptable.
Pegula offered a strongly worded denial, “The statement attributed to me in Mr. Trotter’s complaint is absolutely false,” he said in the team’s official X account to the more than 1.7 million followers.
“Racism has no place in our society and I am personally disgusted that my name is associated with this complaint,” he added.
The case will turn into a spectacle and be part of national interest, especially when Mr. Pegula and an unnamed NFL media reporter will have to give sword depositions. Someone is lying, and someone will commit perjury.
The longer the NFL takes to own the alleged statement the harder it will be to defend itself from criticism.
