NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has doubled-down on his stance to not release more information from the Washington Football Team (WFT) investigation.
In July, the league fined the team $10 million after an investigation found the club’s work environment was “highly unprofessional,” especially for women.
The league’s investigation found that team owner Dan Snyder was responsible for the club’s unprofessional and intimidating culture.
Snyder was subsequently replaced by his wife, Tanya Snyder, who assumed responsibility for the day-to-day operations but a full written report was not released by the league.
Instead, the NFL published a press release that included recommendations made by Beth Wilkinson, the independent counsel who led the review.
Despite increasing pressure for the league to release more information, Goodell cited anonymity as a reason to withhold the full report.
“There was a summary of the findings,” Goodell told reporters during a news conference on Tuesday.
“We had an independent counsel look at that, Beth (Wilkinson) and her team. They worked on it almost a year, and I think interviewed roughly 150 people, and I think close to six million documents they worked through.
“But one of the important things of getting a professional that has worked in this space was making sure that you had people who were willing to come forward, most of which wanted to do so with security and privacy and anonymity as part of that.
“It would be difficult for us to do that. And that not only affects the investigation that you’re going through, but it affects future investigations and the credibility of that.
“When you make a promise to protect that anonymity, to make sure that we get the right information, you need to stand by that. So we’re very conscious of protecting those that came forward.”
‘Just tell the truth’
His comments come after two former employees of the Washington Football Team hand-delivered a letter to NFL owners demanding a public release of the information.
“Just tell the truth. Just be honest. That’s all I ask. That’s all I want is transparency. The accountability will come later. I think if everybody sees the truth, it will be pretty obvious what needs to be done,” Melanie Coburn, one of the employees, told CNN Sport’s Carolyn Manno.
“All we want is the truth. This is his (Dan Snyder’s) culture. These are the people he hired. He allowed this to happen in the organization. He encouraged it. He was right there.”
When pressed on the issue, Goodell told CNN’s Manno that he thought both Snyder and the club had been held properly accountable.
“I think we did an unprecedented fine. Dan Snyder has not been involved with the organization for almost four months,” he said.
“We obviously are focused more on making sure that the policies, many of which were put into place prior to this investigation, but also coming out of it, were put into place and that they will be maintained and that we can ensure that will happen in this organization.”
CNN’s Carolyn Manno, Jill Martin and Adam Renuart contributed reporting.
