Hopefully this section will never mean anything to you. But sadly, infractions do occur. Mistakes happen. And rarely .... and we do mean rarely, someone determines to ruin the joy of the USAFL by cheating. Since we started this league in 1997, we've only had two instances of cheating. Both were dealt with quickly and decisively.

The league refuses to create a detailed rulebook for penalties because we demand our participants to play the game with honor and respect, following the example of the USAFL Code of Ethics.

But, because mistakes happen occasionally, there is a need for penalties for GMs that miss crucial deadlines or negligently put their franchise over the Salary Cap. Fortunately our league is now quite modernized, with most of the GM's responsibilities simplified via online interfaces. This has greatly reduced the amount of missed deadlines.

Founder & Commissioner Andrew Lewis reserves the right to rule on any infraction based on the severity of the intent. If the Commissioners determine that the infractions were willful, the league will remove the GM from the league immediately. There is no second chances for willful acts.

Standard Penalty Scenarios:
(all penalized draft picks MUST be owned by the penalized team)

* Team has clerical errors in Salary Report
Any team that has a clerical error in their Salary Report will lose one 3rd round draft selection per occurrence. If the errors are determined to be willful, penalties up to and including the maximum will be levied.
(This penalty will more than likely not happen anymore, given the fact that our salary reports are automatically generated now by the website)

* Team misses Final Roster Cut deadline and their roster is over the limit
The Commissioner will step in and waive players at his own discretion to get the team under the roster limit. PENALTY: Team will lose one future 2nd round selection from the upcoming draft.

Teams are allowed to be over the roster limit during the off-season while they are able to move players via trades or waivers. Once the Trading Period and/or Final Roster Cut deadlines have passed, teams must be UNDER the roster limit.

* Team is over the Salary Cap
The Commissioner will step in and waive players at his own discretion to get the team under the salary cap by releasing ALL recent Free Agents and returning them to their previous team (they will receive a standard 1.000 contract). PENALTY: Team will lose one future 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th selections from the upcoming draft(s).

Teams are allowed to be over the cap during the off-season while they are able to move players via trades or waivers. Once the Trading Period and/or Final Roster Cut deadlines have passed, teams must be UNDER the salary cap.

Teams have the opportunity to sign players from the Waiver Wire after the Final Roster Cut deadline. Even though this occurs after the cap deadline, simple math will dictate what teams will spend to sign a player off of waivers.

* Missed Deadlines:
All other deadlines not mentioned above will warrant no direct penalties, meaning a direct action taken by the League front office to remove assets from the penalized team.

Such deadlines include:
Depth Chart, Training Camp, OFF/DEF Scheme selection, trade deadline.

The League will treat these missed deadlines as follows:
Depth Chart: GMs will not be able to submit their depth chart for the current season once the deadline has passed. This is a hard rule, even in case of emergencies. The League will NOT sort the roster for the GM. BUT - we do allow those same GMs to contact the league office in order to submit a depth chart for the end of the season. That way the GM will have some control over his players that are deciding about retirement. It is the GM's responsibility to contact the league office if they want the option of submitting a depth chart for the end of the season.
Training Camp: The League will run a DI (discipline) camp for all positions.
Waiver Wire Claim: The League will sign the lowest ranked players (K/Ps) to get the team's roster to the required 53 players. If the team needs a certain position to fill a roster requirement, then the League will sign the lowest ranked player at that position.
OFF/DEF Scheme: The League will use the scheme selections from the previous season.
Trade Period: The League will not accept any trading past the deadline.

Exclusive Penalty Scenarios:

* Cheating. Anything that looks like it will be treated severely. Avoid all appearance of cheating. Don't even joke about it. Commissioner Andrew Lewis will personally investigate all situations of this kind.

* The league office reserves the right to investigate and determine the level of penalty of all other infractions. The league's decision is final. Only Commissioner Andrew Lewis has the ability to overturn any league penalty decision.