Not too long ago, we've published Ben Jones' story on his experience with the Steamrollers.
Right after that - as we all figured - online war started. So, TDEU started its own "investigation" to get to the bottom of things with nothing but facts. We have talked to quite a number of people around the team and around Jones, and will be publishing the story as the final chapter.
Now, here's the official statement coming from the Steamrollers camp on issues that were brought up in previous story.
Note that we did no editing of the statement. Some grammar mistakes might come up.
"As we knew of the publication of the post from Ben Jones about his passage on the team, we feel obliged to write about the team and the situation. We understand all the frustration that overcome after a not successful undertaking, as the player did not showed a performance that we expected.With this scenario, he was benched and then as finally not on the list for an away game. After that, the player asked to have its services dismissed, what was promptly done, including with the team giving to the player the tickets to coming back to USA and the rescission penalty forgotten. The salaries and other details, such as his personal ride with a driver to the club for training, cable TV and internet, all of it was fulfilled by the Corinthians Steamrollers, that has all the bills and invoices of this services and duties, including player’s training attendance list.
The Corinthians Steamrollers is a pivotal part of the recent history of American Football in Brazil. The team is the current national champion and has an important role in divulge the sport in this continental soccer-country. For that, the Steamrollers merged into Corinthians to be part of a nation of 35 million fans. The path of the team was followed, with Corinthians’ assistance, so other American Football teams merged into other soccer giants, so the sport could grow as fast as its possible with a good support from well known organizations and its fans.
Worldwide known, Corinthians has 103 years old, is the current Soccer’s FIFA Club World Champions and has 4,800 players that represents the club in 41 different sports. As even the player said, the club is a nation with passionate fans that supports the ones that really leaves its hearts and high performance at the field in the name of this nation. Unfortunately, this just not happen all the times and for both parts, it is not most desirable of the outcomes.
Other Americans and foreigners were and are part of the team and staff, including the actual QB, with 10 pass TDs and 4 rush TDs on the current league, and the head coach, 12 times Italian champion and 3 times European champion as a player. He is now in his third year ahead of the team, attesting its organization that, in the current scenario that the American Football lives in Brazil, is the best of the country.
Thank you for your attention and keep on going with your important paper to divulge the sport that we love all over the world.
Ricardo Trigo
President Corinthians Steamrollers"
This statement is not clearing up 90% of accusations. I have been a part of the organization and every American who was a part of the team can tell you the same. Benjamin is not the best player but he is telling the truth. Touchdown who do I contact to give my story?
ReplyDeleteYou can e-mail us by tomorrow 12am EST - touchdowneurope@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteNote that we will be checking your story, and, that, if needed - your name stays private for public, as long as we have it, in order to do a check-up on your claims.
Thanks!
We are a club in the state of São Paulo , and we have a great appreciation for the team Corinthians Steamrollers by their titles won , by the way they play and the way that help smaller teams of Brazil .
ReplyDeleteWe build the first official field football in Brazil and built stands, and we seal a contract with Corinthians Steamrollers to send their games here in our stadium , so we could create new fans for our team and new sponsors we could , from the moment that signed the contract the huge team Corinthians Steamrollers only brought public and magnified the sport in the region , and always fulfilling all agreements that we seal in the contract.
We saw Ben Jones with their poor play on our field , and then always follow the pictures over and over the same travel by Brazil . Looking more like a tourist than a football player .
The Club Corinthians Steamrollers is a very big team and rich , not to enforce a simple contract with an athlete 's level of Ben Jones
Bruno - LEME
That's a shame of a statement.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, they should have sent the text to an English teacher or even have it through the Google Translator. If you are going to make a statement for INTERNATIONAL viewers than you should at least make it readable.
That being said, it's content is also shameful. They blame the player and they try to justify their ridiculous attitudes by saying that he played poorly or "not showed a performance that we expected". I'm sorry but this is NO EXCUSE for mistreating a man like that. You should have done your homework researching and contacting his previous teams. You can't just treat someone like that and blame it on their performance on field.
This statement clarifies NOTHING on this case as Steamrollers have spent 4 of 5 paragraphs just talking about how good they are and counting advantage (by the way, if they think a QB performance of 10 passing TDs on a season is great, we have a Brazilian QB that have scored 10 passing TDs only in the LAST 2 GAMES, sorry).
They keep saying that they have all bills and invoices but we haven't seen none until now.
And last, this team is already known in Brazil for dirty attitude and lack of discipline, promoted and accepted by their coaching staff (the oh-so-good Italian they talk about) and there's nothing they can say about it (and they really did not touch the subject on the text, they now it).
We hope Brazilian and International Football Community are now aware of this type of behavior (including League Organization - how can you let an American without a WORKING VISA play on your League?) and start to look at player importing with the seriousness it deserves.
Thanks
All in that statement is really weird, specially because this whole situation obviously created quite a stir in Brazilian American Football community.
ReplyDeleteCorinthians has been telling brazilians that two of the last americans they got, including Jones, owed money to drug dealers, had a lot of off-the-field issues, left without honoring their side of the contract, and none of that is said on the statement.
I would be happy as well to help in these investigation reporting what´s been talked here in Brazil.
Ben Jones was definitely one of the worst American players who have stepped in Brazilian fields, to play football.
ReplyDeleteCorinthians steamrollers is an example of adminstration for many teams here in Brazil, and one of the pioneers to import athletes to play football.
And besides, they have a name of a great club and some corporate sponsors to ensure, and would not be with small actions, like those invented by Ben, the team would dirtying his name, within Brazil and around the world.
Please do!
ReplyDeleteWe're still open for information, and like we said in our previous comment - touchdowneurope@gmail.com ;)
And again, we're making a public promise that your personal information will NOT be "out there".
I've been around Ben Jones for a few months while I was in Brazil (I go to college in US). He was not performing as well as the coaches and front office thought he would. Unfortunately, after his wife flew down to Brazil, he became a constantly absent mark on the attendance sheet.
ReplyDeleteOn the accusations that he has made regarding the "2 hours walk" to practice, I just can't believe he had the guts to say such thing. To those that are not aware, Ben had a driver that would take him from home to practice or any other place that he needed.
It's just funny how a "Hall of Famer" player can be accused by a developing team for underperforming.
Anyways,I wish the best to Ben Jones in his journey around the world.
That was a horrible response by the steamrollers' president. The lack of counterarguments for all the accusations made only makes us doubt the honesty of the administration. This is enlarge an already growing bad reputation that its administration have, personified in the name of the president. He surely is a very influent people in Brazil, but his decisions lack scruples, and he has shown that he is willing to step over laws and people and even the sport' best interest for its Own interest, for the interest of his team and the interest of his made-up championship.
ReplyDeleteThe president of the Steamrollers, Ricardo Trigo has strong connections with corrupt politicians and criminals.
ReplyDeleteHe uses this their "strength" to scare the players, he created his próprial regional league because other teams did not win the state, it just looks for his own glory, he uses the image of a former porn actor to promote the team, he is a dirty guy spotting any sport in the country.
Trigo, Brazil is ashamed of you.
Corinthians is a dirty "team" (more like a gang of thugs, with very few exceptions), on and off the field. Anyone who has played them knows that behavior is encouraged and celebrated.
ReplyDeleteIf the problem was that the player did not perform the way they expected him to, send him back! Accept that you have made a mistake bringing him to play for your team and fix it. Coming up with so far fictitious arguments (nobody has seen any proof of what they claim to be the truth) is embarrassing for the "team" and for Brazilian football.
It is not the first time they do it, and knowing their lack of character, it won't be the last, unless foreign players are informed about their way of doing things, because locally everyone knows they cannot be trusted.
Hopefully, other stories will be made public, so foreign players and coaches can know that other teams have imported players successfully, treating them the best way possible and following legal procedures. Yes, there are problems, not everything is perfect but what happened with Ben Jones and other Corinthians players IS NOT the standard.
We already knew that they (and by They I mean Trigo and Susy) were going to do this.
ReplyDeleteThey are going to try to disqualify and divert the subject instead of justifing the accusations.
Typical from people that are at the "dark side" of the story. Strategies well used by politicians.
It is great that international Football Community see this and be aware before investing in our corrupt Country...
First LFA going "bankrupt", and now Corinthians doing this...
Even so, Trigo was the first to accuse LFA from irregularities and corruptions, but it seams that he forgot to cover his footsteps!
Best Wishes!
Im going to repeat my comment on the original story, IFAF need to step up and start protecting players and coaches. Steamrollers have quite a few issues it seems, and if one of them is proven true, then the team will be "blacklisted" by imports, providing no health insurance and/pr visa's are a major no no. Regardless if everything else was true. The player in question needed to complete his contract, if neither party did, they they both should suffer penalties, which should be in the contract. As for Brazilian American football, has great potential, rival that of mexico/germany/japan. I say good luck to the teams there, I would like to hear more stories about the good/well run, well respected teams there.
ReplyDelete