Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened hard-fouling WNBA players after DiJonai Carrington‘s foul on Sophie Cunningham.
Carrington made headlines over the weekend for an apparent ‘clothesline’ on Cunningham during the Chicago Sky vs. Indiana Fever game.
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Carrington was ejected, and Cunningham seemed to move on from the hard foul, but AG Uthmeier has warned other players from executing similar hard fouls when they’re in his state.
Florida AG James Uthmeier says he’d charge players with assault for hard fouls
AG Uthmeier reposted a video of the incident on X and openly said that he would charge WNBA players for assault over fouls like these.
“The WNBA knows better than to play games down here in Florida, because I’ll be charging people with assault.”
The WNBA has not had a franchise in Florida since 2002, when the Miami Sol folded and the Orlando Miracle were relocated and rebranded as the Connecticut Sun.
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Despite the WNBA’s aggressive expansion over recent years with new teams in San Francisco, Toronto, Detroit, and Philadelphia, the state of Florida hasn’t had much interest.
One of the reasons the Miami Sol folded was a lack of local support, and Uthmeier’s comments will definitely disincentivize any local plans to bring a WNBA franchise to the state.
Carrington’s foul was judged as harsh in the moment, and it promptly led to an ejection from the game after video review, which is the conventional way of dealing with such incidents.
Fallout from DiJonai Carrington’s foul on Sophie Cunningham
Fever coach Stephanie White defended Carrington’s intentions behind the play, openly stating she didn’t think it was an intentional foul.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Carrington herself called it an unfortunate incident, although after going on social media and invoking white privilege before having to clarify she wasn’t talking about the foul or the ejection with that post.
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Cunningham questioned why race was brought into the matter, but seemed to have a general lack of interest in pursuing this matter beyond what transpired on the court.
The WNBA has no basis to issue a retroactive punishment here, as Carrington already returned to the court on Monday night and scored a career-high 26 points.
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