AFL2: Florida Firecats have a deadbeat Mikey Boy Brown wannabe owner, get booted from play-offs.

Posted: July 28th, 2009 | Author: Zim | Filed under: Arena Football League | 1 Comment »

Florida Firecats QB Justin Midgett had the season sacked as well as losing yardage on this play in a recent game.

AFL2 Florida Firecats yanked from the post-season because deadbeat owner owes the league over $200K…

Team qualifies for the post-season for 8th straight season but isn’t allowed to compete due the gaff…

Deadbeat owner and his brother GM are cheap and treat people and players badly…sound like he wants to be the next Mikey boy Brown.

by Mike Zimmer, Indoor football fan…but it’s dying an agonizing death

According to the Fort Myers News Press, the Florida Firecats are not headed to the post-season despite having qualified for a play-off spot.  ( http://www.news-press.com/article/20090728/SPORTS/907280361/1010/sports&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL )

The team just completed an upset in the final week and therefore qualified for the play-offs despite a (7-9) record.  It was their 8th straight time qualifying for the post-season, every year since coming into the AFL2 back in 2001.

The story is though, that their deadbeat owners are in hock to the league for $200K and therefore have been removed from the post-season after much consideration and warning from the league.

However, things have been bad all season for the Firecats and even the players have been up in arms and out-spoken about the lack of care or attention that deadbeat owner Chris Vallozzi had been paying to his team.  Things such as being without athletic tape, not having enough footballs for games and questions over health care and the threat that paychecks wouldn’t come all had the team in a tizzy.

The club finished (7-9) despite not being able to sign free-agents and replace injured players.  More, it’s amazing to the pride of a few players that continued to play hard despite the worry that if they got hurt, who would pay for the medical attention.  Some players said they pulled up in fear after rumors were rampant about the team not willing to pay.

In fact, one of the Vallozzi’s apparently accosted the teams all-time leading receiver and yelled at him for getting an MRI earlier this year because they hadn’t approved it or approved to pay for it.

Worse yet, it seems the front office staff haven’t exactly been around much and it seems they treated people pretty badly when they were there.  Sounds like a bunch of $30K millionaire douche bags to me.  Probably some East Coast Guido’s that moved down to Southwest Florida and threw around cash and promises that they couldn’t back up in the end.

These guys would do Mike Brown proud of course.  Afterall, even into the early 1990′s, the Bengals routinely charged players for extravagances like towels, jock straps and hot water in old Riverfront stadium.  Players apparently had personal accounts with Brooks Sporting Goods downtown to take care of needs as necessary as shoes which the Browns weren’t willing to part with their money for.

One thing that the Browns don’t do though and I have to defend them on.  They don’t owe anyone anything.  Nope, they’re all a cash business.  They may be skin-flints but the Brown family is full of the sharpest lawyer minds on a curmudgeons budget.  They long ago knew that if you swindle people out of the necessary things, goods and services (not to mention sweet ass deals with leases, stadia build with public funds and screw your fans) you usually pay pennies on the dollar and can still make bundles of money.  Therefore, not owe anyone and can pay what bills you do have early or on time. 

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