FatFoot wrote:It's an agreement between two teams, to make a trade, with a pre-arranged trade-back after a week. That agreement is what makes it collusion. Collusion is illegal in pretty much all of FF. Thus it is cheating. It's not the trade that makes it illegal. It's the agreements to make a trade, and then later reverse it, which is illegal. It is ABSOLUTELY cheating.
And I absolutely disagree.
The trade is made with the bona-fide intention to benefit each owner's team? Check. The trade is not intended to boost one team at the expense of another as part of a two-team syndicate? Check. The trade is not clearly in violation of league rules? Check.
Neither team is bound by the side agreement to reverse the trade. If I trade you Kelley Washington for a kicker before next week's games with an agreement to trade him back, and then Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth, and Wes Welker are all injured, making Kelley Washington the #1 WR in New England and thus quite valuable, I'm not bound to trade him back. Tough luck for you.
In all reality this is an exceptionally small issue and one that is unlikely to have any effects whatsoever. The one exception, as I noted, is in contract leagues - and that's only because most contract leagues have poorly designed rules which make trades practically the only possible form of roster manipulation.
Felix the Cat
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the commish of my league openly supports one week deals and just helped out my bro last week... shows you the class of our league I've been screwed over by these kinds of deals before and it doesn't feel good at all.
How is it collusion? I'm not quite sure some of you know what collusion means. It's an agreement that is aimed at helping one team but not the other. If it's aiding both teams, then it isnt collusion. Moreover, you guys are discussing that since it's pretdetermined it's collusive. What does that even mean? Arent all trades predetermined?
GP1: I seriously think you owe it to yourself to look up the definition of the term Collusion before lecturing us about not understanding the term.
On the most basic level, it's just an agreement to work together. That is collusion. It is against most league rules.
Everything's been pretty clearly spelled out on this thread, including WHY it's considered wrong, HOW it screws up the league for all of the other teams, etc.
Go ahead and make those trades. Just don't be surprised when your roster gets frozen by your commish, and you're not invited back next year. You were warned.
FatFoot wrote:GP1: I seriously think you owe it to yourself to look up the definition of the term Collusion before lecturing us about not understanding the term.
On the most basic level, it's just an agreement to work together. That is collusion. It is against most league rules.
No. By your conveniently self serving definition of collusion EVERY trade would fall under your standards. Dont all trades involve a sense of working together? In fantasy football terms collusion is an agreement between two teams that benefits one team but not the other.
Per Yahoo's rules:
No owner will engage in any action that might be deemed to be collusive (two or more owners agreeing to make moves that benefit one team, but not the other).
Under that definition, how is that collusive? Theyre clearly trading to better both their teams. While it can be classified as sneaky or undercutting the rules, it isnt clearly illegal.
FatFoot wrote:GP1: I seriously think you owe it to yourself to look up the definition of the term Collusion before lecturing us about not understanding the term.
On the most basic level, it's just an agreement to work together. That is collusion. It is against most league rules.
No. By your conveniently self serving definition of collusion EVERY trade would fall under your standards. Dont all trades involve a sense of working together? In fantasy football terms collusion is an agreement between two teams that benefits one team but not the other.
Per Yahoo's rules:
No owner will engage in any action that might be deemed to be collusive (two or more owners agreeing to make moves that benefit one team, but not the other).
Under that definition, how is that collusive? Theyre clearly trading to better both their teams. While it can be classified as sneaky or undercutting the rules, it isnt clearly illegal.
Collusion: A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.
That definition pretty much precisely describes what's happening here...and it's what the dictionary says. I agree Yahoo!'s definition of collusion is more specific, but rule number five states, "No owner will take any action whose purpose is, in any way, to interfere with fair play in a league." It all depends or your perspective I guess...I think it's absolutely clear cut collusion (dictionary defined) because it's basically a secret alliance...and the opportunity to do it is not available to everyone, undermining fair play and making it illegal. I can almost see someone saying "but it IS available to everyone"...but really think about it...it's not. In order for you to do something like that, you would have to trust the other owner to trade back the player...you would most likely have to be friends with that other person. Everyone in the league may not have a friend who happens to have a roster where moves that can be mutually beneficial can be made. Either way it's a cheap move, so you and your friend would most likely have some character issues as well...so any people of integrity would be unable to make a deal like that.
I think it interferes with fair play...therefore against the letter of Yahoo! law.
I think the best way to handle the one week trades subject is to have your commish draw up a rule allowing or disallowing the practice before the year begins. Yahoo and the other FF sites should do the same. It's a gray area now that will cause problems in more than one league.
fezzik wrote:Collusion: A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.
That definition pretty much precisely describes what's happening here...and it's what the dictionary says. I agree Yahoo!'s definition of collusion is more specific, but rule number five states, "No owner will take any action whose purpose is, in any way, to interfere with fair play in a league." It all depends or your perspective I guess...I think it's absolutely clear cut collusion (dictionary defined) because it's basically a secret alliance...and the opportunity to do it is not available to everyone, undermining fair play and making it illegal. I can almost see someone saying "but it IS available to everyone"...but really think about it...it's not. In order for you to do something like that, you would have to trust the other owner to trade back the player...you would most likely have to be friends with that other person. Everyone in the league may not have a friend who happens to have a roster where moves that can be mutually beneficial can be made. Either way it's a cheap move, so you and your friend would most likely have some character issues as well...so any people of integrity would be unable to make a deal like that.
I think it interferes with fair play...therefore against the letter of Yahoo! law.
To each his own. I just dont think you can take real life definitions and apply them to fantasy scenarios. While I think it's sneaky and I personally wouldnt do it, I dont think it's cheating as per the rules. In something that's not so black and white I'd take it to league vote. Just like in this thread, we all have different ideas as to what constitutes collusion and what doesnt. Once instituted, allow or disallow this behavior, it will then be league precedent. It's best to let the league decide on future governing rules.
fezzik wrote:Collusion: A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.
That definition pretty much precisely describes what's happening here...and it's what the dictionary says. I agree Yahoo!'s definition of collusion is more specific, but rule number five states, "No owner will take any action whose purpose is, in any way, to interfere with fair play in a league." It all depends or your perspective I guess...I think it's absolutely clear cut collusion (dictionary defined) because it's basically a secret alliance...and the opportunity to do it is not available to everyone, undermining fair play and making it illegal. I can almost see someone saying "but it IS available to everyone"...but really think about it...it's not. In order for you to do something like that, you would have to trust the other owner to trade back the player...you would most likely have to be friends with that other person. Everyone in the league may not have a friend who happens to have a roster where moves that can be mutually beneficial can be made. Either way it's a cheap move, so you and your friend would most likely have some character issues as well...so any people of integrity would be unable to make a deal like that.
I think it interferes with fair play...therefore against the letter of Yahoo! law.
To each his own. I just dont think you can take real life definitions and apply them to fantasy scenarios. While I think it's sneaky and I personally wouldnt do it, I dont think it's cheating as per the rules. In something that's not so black and white I'd take it to league vote. Just like in this thread, we all have different ideas as to what constitutes collusion and what doesnt. Once instituted, allow or disallow this behavior, it will then be league precedent. It's best to let the league decide on future governing rules.
Yeah, I agree that the league should ultimately decide. One point I want to clarify...I wasn't saying it was illegal based on the dictionary definition of collusion...well, I was...but I was using it to show that it broke rule five in regard to fair play...not rule four in regard to Yahoo!'s definition of collusion.
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by Felix the Cat » Sun Oct 28, 2007 8:58 pm 
