CFL.ca Staff

TORONTO -- – The Canadian Football League announced today that it has fined British Columbia Lions defensive lineman Khalif Mitchell for unacceptable comments made on Twitter that are in violation of the league’s social media policy. In addition, the Lions linemen, who was supposed to return to the lineup this Friday, will not play in his team's matchup against the Edmonton Eskimos as decided by the football club's management.
 
As per league policy, player fine amounts are not disclosed.

“On behalf of the BC Lions Football Club, I am announcing today that Khalif Mitchell will not be in the lineup for Friday’s game versus the Edmonton Eskimos:, said Lions President and CEO Dennis Skulsky.  "While Khalif has missed the previous three games due to injury and was slated to return this week, a joint decision has been made between VP of football operations Wally Buono, head coach Mike Benevides and I to remove him from the starting lineup.

“This decision is a response to Khalif’s inappropriate comments made on his Twitter feed this morning and despite his public expression of remorse, we believe this is the best course of action for our organization at this time.  

“Let me state very clearly on behalf of our entire organization that Khalif’s message was completely inappropriate and we apologize to anyone who was offended by it.  The BC Lions Football Club, our players, coaches and staff hold ourselves to the highest standard and we are proud to represent our culturally diverse community.

“Moving forward, we will seek to better educate Khalif and all of our players while reinforcing the importance to our entire organization of understanding and respecting all cultures.”
 
The CFL’s Social Media Policy is as follows:
 
Our league encourages players to use social media, in keeping with our desire to be accessible to our fans. But we prohibit players who are on the 46-man roster from using any form of social media during games, including 90 minutes prior to kickoff, during halftime and until after ‘team time*’ and all the individual player’s post-game media obligations have been completed.

It is also prohibited to have another person post comments to a player’s social media account on their behalf during a game. Any further restrictions/permissions are at the team’s discretion.

All postings made to social media are treated as ‘public’ and are subject to the same discipline if a player or employee made similar comments or actions in a public forum or in front of a camera or microphone.

If a player, team employee or league employee uses social media (which includes retweeting or reposting someone else’s comment(s) to their own social media account) in a manner that may bring the CFL into disrepute, including posts that condone harassment, discrimination or violence, are obscene or sexually explicit, or divulge proprietary information or disparage the league, teams, officials, players, employees or fans, they will be subject to discipline from the Commissioner’s Office.
 
*Team time is defined as the duration of time that the team is in the locker room following a game and prior to the locker room being opened to media.