Wisconsin sues Miami for tampering with football transfer - ESPN

The University of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday claiming Miami's football team broke the law by tampering with a Badgers player, a first-of-its-kind legal attempt to enforce the terms of a financial contract between a football player and his school.

The lawsuit refers to the athlete in question as «Student Athlete A,» but details from the complaint line up with the offseason transfer of freshman defensive back Xavier Lucas. Lucas left Wisconsin and enrolled at Miami in January after saying the Badgers staff refused to enter his name in the transfer portal last December.

In the complaint filed Friday, Wisconsin claims that a Miami staff member and a prominent alumnus met with Lucas and his family at a relative's home in Florida and offered him money to transfer shortly after Lucas signed a two-year contract last December. The lawsuit states that Miami committed tortious interference by knowingly compelling a player to break the terms of his deal with the Badgers.

«While we reluctantly bring this case, we stand by our position that respecting and enforcing contractual obligations is essential to maintaining a level playing field,» the school said in a statement provided to ESPN on Friday.

According to the complaint, Wisconsin decided to file suit in hopes that «during this watershed time for college athletics, this case will advance the overall integrity of the game by holding programs legally accountable when they wrongfully interfere with contractual commitments.»

Representatives from the University of Miami did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The pending case promises to be an interesting test of whether schools can use name, image and likeness (NIL) deals to keep athletes from transferring even