The National Football League will indefinitely suspend four players if they don’t cooperate with the league in an investigation about performance enhancing drugs.
Green Bay Packers linebackers Clay Matthews, and Julius Peppers, free agent linebacker Mike Neal, and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison have until August 25th to be interviewed by the league, reports by USA Today says.
The suspension would begin on August 26th, according to a letter by NFL senior vice president of labor policy and league affairs Adolpho Birch to the NFL Players Association.
Birch’s letter states that the suspensions would be for conduct detrimental, but would be separate from “any possible discipline the players would face under the league’s drug policies,” as reported by Tom Pelissero for USA Today.
According to upi.com, Birch wrote in his letter that he made “at least seven attempts” to set up interviews, but the four players have snubbed him by their “refusal to participate.”
The suspension would last until the player decides to cooperate with the investigators. After that it would come down to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to “determine whether and when the suspension should be lifted,” says Pelissero for USA Today.
These players were among those who were on the Al-Jazeera documentary The Dark Side, which came out about a year ago.
The documentary also mentioned five-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning. However, the league cleared Manning’s name from the investigation, after he and his wife fully cooperated with the investigators.
The NFL Players Association made some statements on behalf of the players, but the NFL said it was not enough. The NFL “accused Neal of making a statement that is ‘demonstrably false’,” says upi.com.
Matthews was a first-round pick out of the University of Southern California in 2009. He has recorded 67.5 sacks in his career.
Julius Peppers had 10.5 sacks last year for the Packers, to bring his total to 136, ninth all time.
Harrison won the 2008 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award, and two Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Mike Neal spent the first six years of his NFL career in Green Bay.
