One day after the CFL Players’ Association rejected the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) previously reached with the CFL, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were back on the field.
“There’s not too much too much of an update right now,” said Riders kicker Brett Lauther, who represents the team on the CFL Players’ Association. “We had a call yesterday to go over the next steps from the vote.
“Both sides want to get something done. And obviously the membership didn’t think the last ratification was good enough.”
Currently, the specifics of why the agreement was rejected are unknown.
And while some have speculated it may be due to the new ratio rules which would allow American players who have spent three years with the same team or five years in the league to replace a Canadian for up to 49 per cent of snaps in a game, Riders running back Kienan LaFrance isn’t confident that’s the issue.
“This is not an American-versus-Canadian issue,” said LaFrance. “Both our Canadians and Americans want what’s best for the league.”
And while the CBA was rejected, Lauther isn’t too worried about the future of the agreement.
“Being in the league a while, it’s like every CBA coming around,” said Lauther. “It’s the end of the world. It’s the end of the world when they went to the government for $150 million, it’s the end of the world for this and that. A week or two passes and guys are back and playing football and it’s all forgotten.”
For many players, they want to put all this CBA talk behind them and focus on football.
When quarterback Cody Fajardo was asked about the recent news, he simply talked about the team’s training camp.
“I think it’s been a great week of practice,” said Fajardo. “I’ve been really excited with our receivers. A lot of big plays down the field and you can tell we have been focusing on the deep ball.”
Head coach Craig Dickenson shares a similar mentality and is focused on getting his team ready for the season.
“We know there is stuff going on behind closed doors and we respect the process and we just keep rolling on,” said Dickinson. “We are just going to prepare the guys for a game that we anticipate happening in the next week to 10 days.”
For players, it appears they will continue practicing until an agreement has been reached.
And as for the fans, they can only sit and wait to see if their team will hit the field against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in their first pre-season game on May 31.
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