Vince McMahon is out of his mind.
The WWE CEO announced this week that he will be relaunching the XFL football league in 2020 with a scheme to entice sports fans who believe players shouldn’t have the right to make social and political statements on the field.
According to ESPN, McMahon envisions a self-funded league that will allow him to do whatever he wants. “I can say, ‘Here are the rules, and as long as you are playing football in the stadium for us, you follow these rules,’“ he explained.
One of the major “rules” that McMahon plans to enforce is a ban on social protests. “People don’t want social and political issues coming into play when they are trying to be entertained,” he asserted. “We want someone who wants to take a knee to do their version of that on their personal time.”
McMahon is a longtime friend of Donald Trump (who has made his opinions about kneeling NFL players crystal clear), and his wife, Linda McMahon, was appointed by Trump to lead the Small Business Administration. But despite their relationship, the wrestling mogul said that he doesn’t know if Trump will agree with his new idea.
In addition to social issues, McMahon also wants to prevent players with criminal records (including DUIs) from joining the league. The 72-year-old claims that XFL players will be evaluated on “many things including the quality of human being they are.”
“If you have any sort of criminal record or commit a crime you aren’t playing in this league,” he said.
The original XFL ran for one season in 2001 as a joint venture between the WWE and NBC, but as Deadline points out, McMahon’s revamped and dangerously non-progressive new idea, isn’t likely to come into fruition.