Court Finds Buccaneers Tried to Swipe Nearly $20 Million From Environmental Disaster Relief

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have gotten themselves in some hot water. According to ProFootballTalk, an eight-page decision filed by a federal appeals court claims that the Buccaneers used creative and deceptive accounting practices in an attempt to cash in on a relief fund for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010.

The reported figure the Bucs tried to scheme for? A cool $19.5 million. However, the court denied the team of any compensation.

The Buccaneers apparently manipulated their revenue statistics in a way that makes it appear as though they were drastically affected by the spill when, in fact, it is unlikely that they were. Tampa's stadium, which is roughly 360 miles from the site of the spill, was one of the farthest businesses that attempted to qualify for payment from the incident.

This is obviously a terrible look for the Buccaneers and their owner, Malcolm Glazer. Of course, a corporate entity manipulating its accounting in order to pad its bottom line is not exactly surprising, but it's unlikely that Roger Goodell will look fondly on the Bucs hurting the public image of the NFL.

Given the disastrous nature of the Deepwater Horizon spill and the thousands of people it affected, it is hard to qualify the Buccaneers' actions as anything but scummy.