Former Steelers safety Troy Polamalu named in a lawsuit filed against AAF

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The Alliance of American Football was hit with two lawsuit brought by former players and a league executive last week, with more expected in the coming months,

The Alliance of American Football may have prematurely ceased operations, but it looks like the league is far from over as far as two former players and a former AAF executive are concerned after two lawsuits were filed against the defunct league last week, as per a report from ESPN.

But while it should come as no surprise to learn that controversial investor Tom Dundon and AAF founder Charlie Ebersol are named as the defendants in one of the suits, it is interesting to note that former Pittsburgh Steelers safety and AAF Head of Player Relations Troy Polamalu has been named as one of the defendants in the other.

Former Birmingham Iron punter Colton Schmidt and Orlando Apollos linebacker Reggie Northrup have filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud and false promise against Dundon and Ebersol among other claims, the full details of which are available to view here.

The second suit has been brought by former Iron director of community relations James Roberson, seeking damages for a range of payments he believes employees were entitled to and naming a number of additional investors and AAF managers in his lawsuit that include Bill Polian, Jared Allen and Polamalu.

These two lawsuit are very likely to be first of many that the AAF will be forced to face in the coming months, with the lawyer for Schmidt and Northrup expecting several more players to add their name to the players claim in the near future. As reported by Michael Rothstein and Kyle Bonagura of ESPN.

“This is a wholesale destruction of an entire football league,” said Boris Treyzon, one of the attorneys suing on behalf of the players. “Once we started looking at the facts, we saw that this is basically a wholesale betrayal of a group of people.”

“Treyzon said Schmidt and Northrup are the only players named for now, but others have expressed interest in joining.”

The AAF will also face a bankruptcy hearing, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN, an issue that is already impacting the ability of former players to sign with the CFL.

For the 40 or more former players who have found a new home in the NFL, they may yet look back on their experience in the AAF as a positive one. But for the hundreds of other players, coaches and staff members left out in the cold, it looks like the whole experience will have left them will an understandable sense of bitterness.