The UFC is the biggest fighting organization in the world and with that level of success, a lot of legal trouble follows closely. One of the biggest recent controversies came to light when Francis ‘The Predator’ Ngannou left the organization citing contract negotiation failure issues. UFC may have had enough and is introducing potentially repressive changes to their contracts.
Two journalists from Sportskeeda first reported on the potential changes to the language inside the contracts. Now more and more investigation from outsiders has revealed that indeed UFC is trying to tamper with the language in their offerings so that fighters have to give up more rights.
“Waiver of Class, Collective, and Representative Actions. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the parties agree that no claims made be initiated or maintained on a class action, collective action, or representative action basis either in court or arbitration. This means that neither party may serve or participate as a class, collective, or representative action representative or member in any proceeding as to Covered Claims either in court or in arbitration.”
“Claims Not Covered. The claims which are not covered by this agreement to arbitrate are, to the extent applicable: claims that are not subject to mandatory binding pre-dispute arbitration pursuant to applicable federal or state law, including claims brought pursuant to the California Private Attorneys General Act, and claims currently pending in the lawsuit entitled Le v Zuffa, LLC, Caso No. 15-cv-01045 in the District of Nevada.”
What will these laws mean for future UFC fighters?
These new laws will mean even less rights for the fighters that will compete for glory in the future. Previously fighters were allowed to wear different sponsor logos to their combat wear. Such rights were later taken away. Many fighters have filed lawsuits against the UFC regarding a number of issues and UFC aims to contractually prevent such acts.
WIll these new terms help the anti-UFC people like Jake Paul? It’s still to early to tell.
