The situation the Canadian Football League and the Toronto Argonauts are facing around quarterback Chad Kelly is perhaps unique when all of its factors are considered. The league has issued harsh suspensions or outright cuts or bans before, and there have been prominent players who have gotten in significant off-field trouble before. But a nine-game suspension for the reigning CFL Most Outstanding Player over an investigation arising from a civil lawsuit is new.
And there are several particular factors with this case that not only make the media’s role in covering it more important, but present significant media challenges for the league and team. In many ways, this is the worst of all worlds for the CFL: they’ve had notable international figures facing off-field issues, and they’ve had prominent players facing off-field issues, but they have not really had the combination of someone with Kelly’s celebrity and actual on-field success embroiled in this kind of controversy. And to date, both the league and the team have not been particularly impressive in their media-facing handling of this.
Earlier this week, the CFL issued a ruling suspending Kelly for nine games (half of the regular season) for “unequivocal violation” of the league’s gender-based violence policy. That followed a three-month independent investigation into a civil lawsuit from a former Argos’ assistant strength and conditioning coach that made claims of sexual harassment and wrongful termination. And that investigation itself drew flak for how long it took the league to announce it.
Following that suspension, though, Kelly was at the team’s rookie camp practice Thursday. He was in a t-shirt and shorts rather than uniform, and was working with the other quarterbacks rather than throwing himself, but his presence was still controversial. And he declined to speak to media afterwards, leaving that up to Argonauts’ general manager Michael “Pinball” Clemons (himself a legendary former Argonauts’ player and figure in the CFL community):
Clemons’ comments there included apologies for the team’s actions to prevent and deal with the alleged harassment here being not “good enough.” But they also saw him deny knowledge of the accusations until they became public, and talk a lot about supporting Kelly and not the team’s female staffers. And while he did talk about the need for the team to improve its reporting policies, and that got some popular support, many of his other remarks drew significant negative comment. That was particularly notable with what he said about why Kelly was out there with the team:
“[The league] laid a penalty which I think surprised people and if we’re going to build this to the place where Chad can get back, part of that is he needs to be with the team. I’m not approving it or disapproving it, I’m following the rules we were given,” Clemons said.
“He was there but did not practice. He’s allowed to be out here, the league has given him that permission and we will follow the league’s direction. We will continue to try to be consistent with that because they went through a long investigation.”
…“The league has laid out instructions for him, he will follow those instructions that he has been given and he will have to. Even with the suspension, it’s not nine weeks and you go back to play,” Clemons said.
“It’s nine weeks, we evaluate where you are and how you have complied with the things that we’ve asked you to do and then at that point, he would be eligible again. The league has had very strict rules when they are governing this and I think it is a reflection of a responsible investigation.”
But “given him that permission” is perhaps not entirely accurate. And part of the issue here is with the CFL’s setup on discipline. In general, the CFL commissioner (currently Randy Ambrosie, in that role since 2017) and the league office have much less disciplinary power than the NFL’s Roger Goodell and his league office.
Goodell’s almost-absolute disciplinary power, at least until it comes to lawsuits, certainly can cause its own challenges. But it is clear in the NFL that discipline generally comes from the league rather than the teams. Teams can always go above and beyond league discipline when it comes to benching or cutting players, and we’ve seen that in cases like Deshaun Watson’s where one franchise deemed him unplayable and another did not, but it’s still generally the league making a ruling and teams following it.
In the CFL, though, the league rulings are quite limited in what they can cover. And they’ve often been successfully appealed in conjunction with the Canadian Football League Players’ Association, and suspended players have been able to play while appealing. (Of course, that’s happened in some NFL situations too, including with Tom Brady during Deflategate.) And that may wind up being the case with Kelly as well.
However, setting aside questions of an appeal, the key practice thing here is that there doesn’t appear to be an easy way for the league to block Kelly from being with the team and working with its quarterbacks. Of course, the CFL could go to a point of putting Kelly on the commissioner’s banned list and forcing the Argos to release him, with a stated agreement to reinstate him after nine regular season games if he follows the instructions they’ve laid out.
But using that list remains quite rare, and would be a notable escalation beyond the current suspension, with contractual implications. And without that, there’s not an easy mechanism for the league to intervene here, as TSN’s Dave Naylor noted Friday:
Let’s be clear here … this is NOT Randy Ambrosie’s decision. There is a collectively bargained agreement between the players and the league. It says that suspended players can participate in practice. Only their teams can decide if they practice or not. This was an… https://t.co/XM4JIOgfj5
— Dave Naylor (@TSNDaveNaylor) May 10, 2024
As Naylor writes, this is the kind of discipline that normally would be a team call. And the Argos have elected not to make that call. But that sets up a lot of media criticism for them and the league. (Which the CFL has intensified by not making it clear they can’t easily intervene here, paving the way for comments like Clemons’ “the league has given him that permission.”)
And this is the sort of story that receives much more widespread media attention than normal on-field CFL matters. And it’s one that has the potential for a lot of negative press for the league. And there’s also potential negative press for the league in how they do or don’t deal with the allegations against the team (including assistant general manager John Murphy, who the lawsuit claims said the complainant’s allegations against Kelly “opened a can of worms that didn’t need to be opened,” but who remains in that role unsuspended), and in how the team responds going forwards.
It’s worth noting as well that there’s a key media role in advancing this story. That happened with the initial reporting on the lawsuit, especially from TSN’s Rick Westhead. And it’s now happened with Westhead’s colleague Naylor obtaining the executive summary of the league-commissioned independent investigation on Kelly (which cannot be released publicly by the league due to privacy laws). Here are some important excerpts from that:
The independent investigation into claims of harassment against Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly corroborates three of six allegations made against him in a recent lawsuit, according to the executive summary of an 87-page report that was obtained Thursday by TSN.
…According to the summary, investigators concluded Kelly did make persistent advances on the former coach, which constitute “sexual harassment as defined by the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act.”
Among the evidence supporting the finding of sexual harassment are copies of text messages from Kelly to the former coach in September of 2023, including one in which Kelly invites her to his hotel room in Hamilton, one in which Kelly asks her over to his place, and another in which she tells another Argos employee of the persistent invitations from Kelly.
The executive summary also supports two other allegations – that Kelly acted aggressively towards the former coach when confronted in the team breakfast room on the morning of Nov. 6, 2023, and that later that same day Kelly yelled derogatory words at the former coach.
Three other allegations investigated and documented in the report – that Kelly made public accusations about the former coach being involved with another Argonauts player, that Kelly threatened her, and that the quarterback was involved in the team’s decision not to renew her contract – could not be corroborated by investigators.
A crucial note here is that this report’s findings do not mean Kelly is criminally or civilly responsible for claims from those three corroborated accusations, and also do not clear him of the three accusations the investigating firm (Saskatchewan-based Buckingham Security Services) could not corroborate. There are at present no criminal charges here, and the civil litigation plays out on its own track. But this kind of outside investigation corroborating three of the six lawsuit claims indicates that these allegations cannot be easily shaken off, and helps illustrate why the league decided to hand down a nine-game suspension (remarkably stiff by past standards). And we only know that it backed up those claims thanks to Naylor’s reporting.
With all of this, the league, the Argos, and many individuals involved with both are in quite a difficult situation. And that also extends to what some of those figures can say on a personal front versus an official one. CFL senior manager of web and digital content Kristina Costabile illustrated that with a personal statement on her Twitter/X account Friday:
Hey everyone, pic.twitter.com/e2JGB8veqZ
— Kristina Costabile (@kcostabile1) May 9, 2024
It’s also worth relaying what Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ senior director of branding Rheanne Marcoux relayed on her personal Twitter/X account Friday, blasting both the Argonauts and the CFL for their responses here:
.@pinball you said yesterday “we will give Chad Kelly all the support he needs”. What are you doing to support your female staff that now have to face coming to work every day with a predator in the building? Have you even spoken to them about your decision to allow this?
— Rhéanne Marcoux (@RheanneMarcoux) May 10, 2024
Yet at the first opportunity to do so, you did the complete opposite. You have only managed to downplay a serious situation and make women across the league feel unvalued, disrespected and unsupported. Do better.
— Rhéanne Marcoux (@RheanneMarcoux) May 10, 2024
There’s no simple or obvious resolution to the Kelly mess at the point we’re at right now. The league has imposed their discipline, and that’s taken criticism from both sides, with some suggesting they were too lenient for not banning Kelly overall and some finding their actions here too heavy considering past precedents.
The Argos have refused to add discipline of their own so far. And Clemons’ comments there Thursday were unsatisfying to many. But banning Kelly from team activities would draw its own criticisms, and could lead to the end of their deal with him. And that isn’t an easy decision to make.
But the Kelly situation can still get much messier for the CFL and the Argos. Yes, these allegations are far from the most serious levied against a CFL player, and there are no criminal charges here right now, unlike in past cases of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, drug smuggling, and more. But Kelly is one of the most prominent players in the league right now, and one of its best, and this mess with him draws a wide swathe of media attention, including from outlets that don’t typically cover the league.
Thus, it’s of the utmost importance for the CFL and the Argos to both have strong plans on how to deal with the media around this. Both need to make it very clear what actions they’re taking and why they’re taking only those actions. And judging by the league’s limited comments so far (and slow response to publicly announcing an investigation in the first place), and by Clemons’ much-criticized comments on this Thursday, both may have some work to do on that front in the days and weeks ahead. We’ll see how they handle media discussion of this going forward.
[TSN]
