Transparency and trust are once again under scrutiny in the NFL. A few weeks back, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) opened an investigation against the NFL, which was fundamentally a case of the league exploiting transparency and trust. But now, former 49ers safety Donte Whitner has drawn light and indirectly accused San Francisco CEO Jed York and other franchise leaders of a similar practice against the players.

“If your financial literacy doesn’t grow, it doesn’t matter how many contracts you get,” said Whitner on The Grit Code Podcast. “It’s still earned income. And the key to it all. And the owners invest the same way, which just blows my mind as to why none of them come down, sit in front of their team, and say, ‘This is how I invest my money. These are the companies I invest in. We want to meet our fixed cost, which is our yearly bills, with passive income that makes you wealthy.’ Nobody’s reinventing the wheel.

“So all the time that I played for the 49ers, the Buffalo Bills, the Cleveland Browns, there was never a time when an owner came into a team meeting and told us or taught us how he invests his money, which is another form of criminality because they all invest the same. Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, all of the top advisors invest in the same companies, right? To produce passive income. And we’ve never had this conversation. So, it just blows my mind.”

Donte Whitner spent 11 seasons in the NFL, playing for the Buffalo Bills, San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns, and Washington Redskins. The core of his comments revolves around the way the franchise owners, be it Jed York (CEO of the 49ers), Terry Pegula (principal owner of the Bills), or Jimmy Haslam (controlling owner of the Browns), kept their players in the dark about their financial activities.

It’s more likely a case of civil violation under the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), and Whitner believes team owners should have conversations with players about their financial growth strategies so that the NFL players could also capitalize on that advice.

Under the CBA, many issues, such as the revenue sharing between the team and the players, the salary cap and structure, drafts, free agency moves, trade deals, and more, are mandatory to be discussed during the collective bargaining process. Team owners and players must discuss each of these aspects before agreeing to anything.

So, considering that, Whitner’s accusation may not be handled as a criminal offense. But of course, the intention behind his words was to spread awareness of the need for financial literacy among the NFL players. Because time and again, the community has seen a player with $100 million in career earnings enter bankruptcy.