FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) Former Arkansas football coach Bret
Bielema, now an assistant with the New York Giants, has filed a $7
million lawsuit against the Arkansas Razorback Foundation.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, says the foundation that supports
Arkansas athletics breached a contractual obligation to pay him
about $12 million — the amount of the buyout agreement Bielema
signed in January 2018 after he was fired.
Marshall Ney, the attorney for the Razorback Foundation, believes
Bielema is the one who owes. The foundation sent Bielema a letter
on Jan. 31, 2019, demanding that he return money it had already
paid him in monthly buyout payments.
”What I can share at this point before digesting the entire
document is that the Foundation previously demanded that Bret
Bielema return the $4,555,833.29 that had been paid to him prior to
the Foundation’s discovery of his multiple material breaches of the
agreement,” Ney wrote in an e-mail. ”It appears that Bielema
filed suit in order to avoid being sued.”
The 64-page lawsuit says the Razorback Foundation’s unwillingness
to pay Bielema stems from its conclusion that he hasn’t tried hard
enough to find another job to offset money the school owed.
Bielema went 68-24 in seven seasons at Wisconsin before heading to
Arkansas. He finished with a 29-34 mark with the Razorbacks and was
fired in November 2017.
In July 2018, the New England Patriots hired Bielema as a
consultant to head coach Bill Belichick. He became the Patriots
defensive line coach in the 2019 season. In January, the New York
Giants and new head coach, Joe Judge, hired Bielema as outside
linebackers’ coach and senior assistant.
###
Copyright © 2020
TTWN Media Networks Inc.
Comments