Zion Williamson and his entourage in the sights of American justice

Engaged for nearly a year in a legal battle with his former agency Prime Marketing Sports, the star of New Orleans, Zion Williamson, has been in turmoil for a week again. According to the lawyer Daniel Wallach of The Athletic, the president of the company and former agent of the player, Gina Ford, would have provided justice with several documents attesting to the benefits in kind illegally received by the player and members of his entourage.

NEW: Zion Williamson’s former marketing agent has served requests for admission in their lawsuit asking him to admit that he received “money, benefits, favors or other things of value” to attend Duke University and to wear and/or use Nike and Adidas.

Wow. That escalated quickly. pic.twitter.com/59gWX5bNKX

— Daniel Wallach (@WALLACHLEGAL) May 10, 2020

The case dates back to May 2019, when the future number one of the draft had illegally broken his contract binding him Prime Marketing Sports to sign with the powerful agency CAA Sports (Creative Artists Agency) which takes care of the assets of Chris Paul and Joel Embiid. A serious fault according to the agency which claimed the exclusivity and the guarantee to represent all the marketing and promotion activities of the Pelicans star for five years, even if in fact the agreement signed between the two parties does not were not recognized by the UAAA (Uniform Athlete Agent Act) which deals in particular with the approval of contracts between sports agencies and university athletes.

Prime Marketing Sports therefore decided to respond by bringing two new lawsuits, one in Florida and the other in North Carolina. The agency claims that Zion’s mother and father-in-law have received gifts and several sums of money from Duke’s university as well as from Nike, for the latter to wear the sneakers models. of the comma mark. The company is claiming in particular 100 million damages and interest for the damage suffered.

Williamson’s name was already mentioned in 2018 when the assistant coach of the University of Kansas Jayhawks, Kurtis Townsend, was suspected of having negotiated, through Zion’s stepfather, with a representative of Adidas promising him certain sums of money and several benefits in kind. It was then an offer to get the winger to sign, a file that the NCAA immediately seized upon, calling him an unauthorized contact by the NCAA Sports Contracts and Amateurism. Facts denounced en bloc by the family and the player, who will finally engage in the colors of the Blue Devils of Duke, then who will sign a record contract with Nike and its subsidiary Jordan Brand last August.

Duke’s university also said in 2019 that it had conducted its own investigation in close collaboration with the NCAA, without however finding the slightest trace of an irregularity at the time of the player’s signature. At this point, the case is still shrouded in obscurity, particularly over the alleged links between some Blue Devils and Nike staff members, as the NCAA has been suing a number of universities for similar facts since. a year.

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