Pressure is mounting on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as the league investigates when a video of suspended star Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancee was first seen by its officials.
US lawmakers have become involved in the situation, requesting details on Goodell's actions, and the leader of America's largest women's advocacy group has called for Goodell to resign.
But the boss of the world's richest sports league maintained no one had seen the brutal video of Rice punching Janay Palmer in a casino elevator last February before celebrity website TMZ revealed it on Monday.
"We did not see video of what took place inside the elevator until it was publicly released," Goodell said in a memo to executives. "None of the law-enforcement entities we approached was permitted to provide any video or other investigatory material to us."
But citing an unnamed law-enforcement source, an Associated Press report said the video was sent in April to the league and its arrival was confirmed by a voicemail from a woman calling from a phone number at the league office.
"We have no knowledge of this," the NFL said in a statement. "We are not aware of anyone who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on Monday. We will look into it."
Rice avoided jail time for the incident by agreeing in May to a pre-trial intervention program. In July, Goodell, who has guided the NFL since 2006, imposed only a two-game ban on Rice, one that was to have ended Friday.
Last month, Goodell said that he had given too soft a punishment and toughened NFL penalties for domestic violence.
Only after video of Rice's brutal left hook went public did the Baltimore Ravens fire Rice, a star rusher who helped them win the 2013 Super Bowl, and Goodell suspend Rice indefinitely.
"The NFL has lost its way," said National Organisation for Women president Terry O'Neill. "It doesn't have a Ray Rice problem. It has a violence against women problem.
"The only workable solution is for Roger Goodell to resign."
Goodell said Tuesday in an interview with CBS that he does not believe his job is in jeopardy over his handling of the Rice affair.
"I'm used to criticism. I'm used to that," Goodell said. "Every day, I have to earn my stripes."
Goodell's memo backed up his Tuesday comment that "no one in the NFL to my knowledge" saw the video of Rice's punch and said the NFL did not ask the now-closed Revel casino in Atlantic City for the video because obtaining such evidence would have been illegal interference in a criminal investigation.
"Information obtained outside of law enforcement that has not been tested by prosecutors or by the court system is not necessarily a reliable basis for imposing league discipline," Goodell said.
A dozen Democratic members of the US House of Representatives and US Senator Dean Heller, a Republican on a Senate Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over the NFL, wrote open letters critical of Goodell.
Heller asked Goodell for details about any NFL personnel's knowledge about the elevator video and what plans Goodell has to "address the harm your league has inflicted on survivors of domestic violence going forward."
NOW leader O'Neill noted San Francisco defender Ray McDonald faces domestic violence charges for striking his pregnant girlfriend, Carolina's Chris Hardy is playing while an appeal is pending on his conviction for assaulting his former girlfriend and sexual assault charges have been filed against NFL Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
"New leadership must come in with a specific charge to transform the culture of violence against women that pervades the NFL," she said.
"The NFL sets the example for college, high school, middle school and even elementary school football programs. And the example it is setting right now is simply unacceptable."
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