Kelly Campbell and teammate Cynthia Schmidt of the Las Vegas Sin. Source …

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WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE. Queensland Chloe Butler training for the US Lingerie Football League

Kelly Campbell and teammate Cynthia Schmidt of the Las Vegas Sin.
Source: Getty Images

YOU knew it was saucy, maybe even a little sleazy, but who knew it was so cheap?

A revealing report has exposed the bare fact that players in America’s Legends Football League (LFL) are unpaid. Yep, their pay packets are even more naked than they are.

But change could be in the wind due to legal action.

The Legends Football League, formerly the “Lingerie Football League”, rebranded with the word “legends” in 2013. Officially these days the league is not about the undies, even though, duh, it’s obviously about the lack of clothing.

We now know it’s about the lack of money too — a point dramatically made on sports and pop culture website Grantland.com.

“If we paid a dime to a player, we wouldn’t sustain a season of play,” Mitchell Mortaza, the league’s founder and chairman, told the site.

In financial terms, players are clinging on by the seat of their pants.
Source: AFP

Mortaza is the man who started, or tried to start, a Legends Football League in Australia. The Australian league never got into gear — or the local ladies out of their gear — because Mortaza couldn’t secure a TV deal.

He reportedly came close to stitching a deal with 7Mate, but like those skimpy lycra outfits, the stitching came apart at the seams.

Mortaza is now back in Las Vegas running the American league, which has shrunk from 12 teams to six in recent times, but which still is a popular enough product to have a deal with a pay TV network.

Despite that deal, and despite crowds of around 5,000 per game at many venues, players have received no payment since the inaugural 2009/10 season.

By way of comparison, Australia’s ANZ Championship netball competition also has crowds of around 5,000. Its players receive anywhere from $12,500 a season for bench players, to six-figure salaries for the elite players.

So why not a similar remuneration for the ladies of the LFL? It wouldn’t be megabucks, but it’d be something.

News.com.au approached Mortaza to answer this and other questions. He told us he would have his say in an official statement responding to what he called the “tabloid journalism” of Grantland.

That so-called “tabloid journalism”, on what most regard as a highly reputable site, includes mentions of lawsuits against the LFL.

They train three times a week, do promotional work, play in front of big crowds yet earn nothing. Not fair.
Source: AP

Some ex-LFL players are seeking compensation for injuries. (Incredibly, LFL players must pay for their own health insurance).

Then there are the fights over payment, which hinge on whether the players are defined as employees or contractors.

“These women have to be there for practices, or they don’t play. They have to be there for promotional events, or they don’t play. They have to look a certain way. That’s not an independent contractor-client relationship. It’s an employee-employer relationship,” a lawyer told Grantland.

The inference being employees should be paid at least the US minimum wage.

Meanwhile, Mortaza has been openly dismissive and blatantly rude towards many of those who complain about conditions, or to those who seek who seek any form of compensation or payment.

“She was a cancer,” he wrote of a certain player who demanded to be paid.

As the legal fight unfolds, the eternal ethical debate rages on. Feminists argue the sport is degrading, that it’s about titillation for the crowd rather than celebrating female athletes.

That debate is on the sidelines for once.

While it’s true that most LFL players do not like performing in undies, this week’s story showed that they willingly put up with the skimpy outfits in order to play the game they love.

What increasing numbers of them won’t put up with is being ripped off.

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