Collusion in a H2H???

[TeddyKGB86]

12 Team H2h 7x7, H2H.

On the final week of the season, there were 2 teams competing for the regular season prize. It has come up that the team who won (team A)was telling the team(team C) exactly what moves to make to at least make it competitive with team B, the team who was originally in the top 2 but ended up in 3rd also missing a 1st round bye. Team C was completely out of it finished around 10th many many games back. The commissioner is also team B. The commish after hearing about this has decided to disband the league and have no winner very conveniently after he lost his semifinal playoff matchup. There is no debate between the parties whether these conversations between team A and team C actually occurred.

The rules on Yahoo! state:
Even though fantasy games are meant to be a competitive experience for all involved, it is important to us that our users not lose sight of the rules of fair play and good sportsmanship.
.....

3. No owner will engage in any action that may be deemed to be collusive (two or more owners agreeing to make moves that benefit one team, but not the other).

4. No owner will make any roster moves (including waiver claims, trade proposals, etc.) whose sole purpose is to hamper the play of other owners.

5. No owner will take any action whose purpose is to, in any way, interfere with fair play in a league.

There is 5 moves per week, most of these moves were used for pitcher streaming to stay competitive in those categories. The question is whether this rises to the level of collusion or not since team C's team did play better than it would have otherwise and there was no player dropped off his team of any value. It seems that wouldn't qualify under rule 3 since his team did benefit from the moves. Just wanted to get other takes on it as I think it's a very interesting case.

[kiddlattimer]

The rules were made to prevent collusion in terms of trades, player swaps, manipulation of rosters etc. For example Team A dropping a player so team C could pick them up and use them in the match... or something similar.

If its just a matter of team A giving team C advice there is really nothing that can or should be done about it. If Team C asked Team A whether David Wright or A-Rod would be a better 3B to draft would that have been collusion?

I highly doubt anyone would have a problem with that, but since this is coming at "knockout time" it sounds like your commish (team B) got his/her feelings hurt and is just looking for "payback".

I would wait until they cool off a little bit and try to talk to them when their emotions arent going crazy. If they're still looking for payback I would find a better league.

[Court Jester]

Its a fine line, but I agree with the first response that this probably doesn't rise to the level of "collusion".........and certainly not to disband the league. That is, unless it can be proven that Team A offered part of their winnings to gain the support of team C.

That said, it wasn't really proper for team A to be contacting a 10th place team in the first place.............and unless the 10th place team was making a bunch of moves prior to the week in question, it was even more improper for them to have made the moves that appear to have been made only to favor one team.

I have seen worse when there is money involved. Shame on both Team A and C!

[pjalst]

+1 , I agree with the last 2 posters