The lead plaintiff in a US class action against Australian bettors in US college football says he just wants a level playing field.
Michael Loeffler of Charlotte filed suit in North Carolina district court against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the body that governs all U.S. college sports.
Loeffler said he filed the lawsuit on Feb. 28 because of the predominance of mature former Australian rules football players in the U.S. college system competing for and winning soccer scholarships over younger U.S. athletes.
“In all of these punting competitions or training sessions over the last four years, an underlying theme is that our 17-year-old kids, our 18-year-old kids, their positions are being usurped by 25-year-old former professional Australian players,” Loeffler told ABC Sport.
“We got to the point where in 2023, 12 of the 14 (punters) in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), which is the number one conference here in college football, were Australian.
“If you count the Big Ten (another college football conference) and the SEC, it’s like 71 percent are Australian bettors,” Loeffler said.
Court documents indicate that in 2023, across all of U.S. college football, 61 of 133 programs had at least one Australian punter on scholarship.
“And we’ve gotten to the point where a lot of schools are just going the Australian route through ProKick,” Loeffler said.
“It’s almost like a concerted funnel into the United States.”
Michael Loeffler has launched a class action lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). (Provided)
Loeffler’s lawsuit specifically cites ProKick, an Australian company that says it can train Australian athletes in American soccer and help them secure college scholarships.
The company, led by former Brisbane and Hawthorn AFL player Nathan Chapman and former NFL kicker John Smith, boasts of helping 270 Australians secure university scholarships, saving them a total of $54 million as of January 2022.
The company’s website lists seven of its graduates who have played in the NFL’s elite.
In January, two ProKick graduates, Joe McGuire, the son of former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, and James Rendell, the son of the late Fitzroy ruckman Matt Rendell, played as punters in the College Football Championship final between Ohio State University and Notre Dame.
McGuire was part of Ohio State’s winning team.
There is no indication that McGuire or Rendell are connected to the lawsuit.
Loeffler said he was motivated to launch the class action because he saw how difficult it would be for his son Hunter, a talented punter in high school, to secure a place at university amid the influx of Australians.
“Everyone was a bit frustrated,” he told ABC Sport.
“One time I was talking to one of the punting guys and he said, ‘A few years ago we invited a group of Australians to come to one of our punt and kick competitions.’
“And they got off the bus and he said, ‘If you could have seen the disparity: We had a bunch of 14- and 15-year-old kids, and then these fully bearded 25-year-olds were getting off the bus and racing against each other.’
“And it bordered on the absurd.
“It was like someone in college going back to their high school and saying, ‘OK, now I want to be on the high school basketball team, so let me go compete against 15-year-old kids.’
“It’s just not historically what our education system was created for. College athletics was created for the 18-23 age group.”
He drew a distinction from US President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender athletes in the United States, which excluded fewer than 10 athletes.
“In the meantime, the Australian punter phenomenon has displaced hundreds and hundreds of people,” he said.
“I don’t think many people realize how absurd this situation is.”
Court documents say allowing Australian athletes in their 20s – some of whom have played professional Australian rules football – to earn scholarships gives them an unfair advantage over student-athletes who normally enter university at the age of 18 or 19.
“ProKick virtually guarantees that its trainees who pay tuition in excess of $15,000 will receive a full scholarship to play in the United States upon completion of their pre-college training school,” court documents state.
“This disparity in age and experience gives Australians an unfair competitive advantage in developing their physical skills, leg strength and technical punting expertise compared to American high school graduates who do not have the equivalent opportunity to acquire a similar skill.”
Loeffler said there are about 200 participants in the class action so far, but he hopes to get about 1,000.
He said he expected the NCAA to file a motion to dismiss his class-action lawsuit.
“And then they’re going to throw a hundred thousand pages of documents at us… to try to overwhelm the prosecution and make them look like they want to resign,” he said.
“We know this process will continue.
“It’s not about money – the class action was more about bringing people together behind this… it’s about implementing change.
“If the NCAA said right now, ‘Yes, we’re going to change that. We’re not going to allow ex-professional players, and everyone has to be under 21. We’ll let in any Australian punter under 21 who doesn’t have prior professional experience,’ I would go straight to the courthouse and tear up the case right now.”
The class action is based on six legal claims, including age discrimination laws, antitrust laws, and unfair trade practices, as well as violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“NCAA policies disproportionately favor international athletes over domestic athletes, granting them an extended period of eligibility while maintaining restrictive age limits in other sports,” court documents state.
Loeffler cites the case of ice hockey in the NCAA, where athletes lose a year of tuition for each year beyond age 21.
Under these rules, a 23-year-old would only be entitled to two years of schooling instead of the usual four.
“We wanted to show the hypocrisy of the fact that in other sports – ice hockey, tennis, skiing – they have regulations in place that you can’t just learn your skills and go on and decide at 25 or 26, now I’m going to dominate the competition,” Loeffler said.
“I don’t want to exclude anyone. If there’s an 18-year-old Australian punter who’s phenomenal, come along.”
Loeffler said he began working on the class action before Fox News in San Antonio reported allegations that some Australian punters at U.S. universities were ineligible to receive scholarships and student visas, potentially in violation of NCAA regulations.
The news agency said it had hired an investigator to look into the fraud allegations.
ABC Sport contacted ProKick’s Nathan Chapman to respond to the allegations made in Loeffler’s class action lawsuit, but he did not return our calls.
