Sporting teams putting a bounty on the head of opposition players… How often does it happen? Personally, I think it happens far more often than sporting administrators would like to believe.

If you take a close look throughout the history of professional sport, even local sport for that matter, it is almost certain that there would have been an occasion where a player has been targeted by the opposition throughout a match.

Be it a case of payback, where a team will organise for a player to be hit harder than usual in response to a past incident, or simply a case of a player taking aim at an opponent as a result of a personal disliking.

An example has been seen recently in the NFL where bounties has been on placed on the heads of opponents, and in order to receive it, it would require these players to be injured.

Amid rumours circulating over the last few weeks, the NFL today finished their investigation into bounties being placed on players and their findings were alarming.

The findings claim that the New Orleans Saints, lead by Coach Sean Payton, former Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams and General Manager Mickey Loomis, have been putting bounties on players for more than half a decade, in the form of pots of money.

Even more alarmingly, this type of behaviour wasn’t restricted to a once-off as it was occurring on a weekly basis.

The penalties were swift and harsh (some of the harshest in the NFL’s history), with Payton being suspended for a year, Williams being suspended indefinitely and Loomis being suspended for eight games as he knew what was transpiring. In addition to this, the Saints were fined $500,000 and will lose two second-round draft choices, one in this year’s draft and one in 2013.

So, what was the reason behind all of this? It’s been reported that they simply wanted to become the most feared team in the competition and one which no team would want to play against.

What a disgrace.

I’m Michael Hopper and this Grinds My Gears!

Image courtesy of Washington Times