The Saskatchewan Roughriders have reversed its decision on the playing status of defensive end Charleston Hughes.
The Riders initially said the CFL sack leader would play in Saturday’s game against the Calgary Stampeders.
On Friday morning, the club issued a statement saying Hughes will not play in the game.
“I left it open-ended yesterday because we’ve been collecting information on the situation since we heard three days ago about what happened. After hearing, we came to the decision between the league, myself, our president, that this was the best course of action to basically do what we’re doing this week and not allowing Charleston to join us here,” said Riders head coach Chris Jones.
“Charleston has given the biggest portion of his life to this league, to my knowledge this is the first time something like this has happened, certainly not to excuse what happened. He’s very embarrassed about the situation and very sorrowful for doing this type of thing. He’s got to basically own it and that’s what he’s doing and now it’s our job to come down here and play a professional football game, and it puts us in a little situation but every team has been faced with something like this, some kind of adversity.”
The organization said it will continue to investigate the impaired driving charges, including the refusal to take a breathalyzer, when requested by police.
The Riders said they made the decision to remove Hughes from the active roster after a “thorough review of our team rules and the CFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.”
Club officials said the Oct. 11 incident negatively reflects on the Riders football club.
“By refusing to provide a breath sample, Hughes demonstrated behavior directly in conflict with the team’s values and expectations – which include respecting police and police procedures,” the Riders said in a statement.
Hughes leads the CFL with 15 sacks this season.
The second-place Roughriders are four points behind the Stampeders in the West Division with two games remaining.
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