On Tuesday, Sept. 17, news broke that former Real Salt Lake head coach Mike Petke had filed a lawsuit against RSL and team owner Dell Loy Hansen.
The 37-page lawsuit was filed with the 3rd District Court, with the claim that the soccer club owed Petke $687,500 in damages.
There was significantly more to the story, however, and Sports Illustrated’s Michael McCann took a stab at educating the public on exactly what is going on between the coach and his former club.
McCann is SI’s legal analyst, an attorney and director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.
He addressed such things as the incident that led to Petke’s suspension — which took place in the match between RSL and Tigres UNAL in Leagues Cup competition — the controversial word Petke used, and what McCann coined “the disputed aftermath,” that followed.
Perhaps the most interesting section revolved around the upcoming legal proceedings, though, titled “Core arguments and likely defenses in the lawsuit.”
Here, McCann argues that Petke’s lawsuit “hinges on a couple of key points,” the first being that Petke had a “contractual guarantee that he would not be fired for cause for an infraction.”
The other argument, according to McCann, stems from whether the press release that followed the incident and Petke’s suspension “defamed him or placed him in a false light.”
McCann also details what sort of response RSL is likely to take to each of those arguments and more.
To learn more about the lawsuit, read McCann’s piece “Mike Petke’s lawsuit vs. Real Salt Lake reveals details behind his firing” on Sports Illustrated’s website.