“Evidence obtained by the committee indicates that senior management and team owner Daniel Snyder may have been involved in a disturbing, long-term and potentially illegal pattern of financial behavior,” the letter said; Washington Command denies allegations
On Tuesday, a congressional committee sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission to share evidence alleging Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder withheld refundable deposits from ticket holders and concealed NFL revenue.
“Evidence obtained by the committee indicates that senior management and team owner Daniel Snyder may have been involved in a disturbing, long-term and potentially illegal financial behavior scheme that has affected thousands of team and National Football League (NFL) fans. the letter began.
The discovery of potential financial irregularities comes amid a committee investigation into sexual harassment in the workplace in Washington.
The committee began looking at financial figures after examining 80,000 pages of documents and interviews with witnesses relating to sexual harassment, Washington Post announced March 31st.
The financial allegations are based on the testimony of Jason Friedman, who has worked in the franchise for 24 years. He was serving as Vice President of Sales and Customer Service when he was fired by the club.
Friedman told the committee that the team kept “two sets of ledgers” to understate NFL ticket revenues.
Revenue from Commanders games will instead be shown as coming from non-NFL events such as college football games or concerts. According to the letter, this money was called “juice” – additional money for the team and was hidden so as not to fall under the NFL’s revenue sharing pool.
The committee also indicated that Snyder withheld as much as $5 million in refundable deposits from season ticket holders.
Friedman “provided to the Committee information and documents showing that commanders regularly withhold security deposits that were supposed to be returned to customers who bought multi-year season tickets for certain seats, called seat rentals,” the letter says.
