DEVELOPING: Marshals players ‘refuse’ to come out of locker room
Rapid City Marshals cancel Saturday’s game vs Billings less than an hour before kickoff
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Rapid City Marshals players refused to leave the locker room ahead of Saturday’s game until they were paid their full salaries by the Arena Football League front office, team personnel confirmed to Black Hills Fox.
The Marshals were set to play the Billings Outlaws at 6:30 p.m. Less than an hour before kickoff, the team announced in a statement the game would be canceled.
“We regret to confirm the cancellation of tonight’s game due to the continuous ongoing issues within the AFL and their inability to meet the commitments made to the owners, teams, players and coaches. All ticket holders will be refunded for this evenings game. As we have more information we will share it in the upcoming days.”
Black Hills Fox spoke with Marshals Co-Owner Wes Johnson on the phone Saturday night, and he denied to comment further than the statement.
Billings Outlaws Owner Steven Titus also released a statement on the situation:
“It is with regret that I inform our Outlaws family of the Rapid City Marshals refusing to play tonight’s game. Their refusal to play is due directly to incompetence, lies and deceit by the current AFL Front Office. This is EXACTLY why I made the statements I made last week to avoid this type of incident and have immediate change in the AFL Front office...”
“I saw Billings, Billings was warming up,” Rapid Marshals DJ, DJ Hulio told Black Hills Fox. “They had no idea what was going on in our locker room, if you will. We all found out about the same time, and all felt the same way. It was a bummer. From what I understand of it, political league crap, league not holding up their end of the deal. You know, from what I understand, Rebecca and Wes did a great job and did everything they could to get the thing done, to get the game going, but at the end of the day, the league didn’t pull their end, and we weren’t able to have a game today.”
As of Saturday night, the Marshals are still slated to play next weekend at home, May 18, against the Southwest Kansas Storm. There is no timetable on how long this holdout from Marshals players will last.
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