New York (AFP) – Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been fined $250,000 by the National Football League after directing an “obscene gesture” to fans during last weekend’s defeat of the New York Jets, US media reports said on Tuesday. Billionaire Jones, 82, was caught in a viral video flipping off fans with a one-fingered salute during the Cowboys’ 37-22 win over the Jets at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday.
Jones said in an interview with the 105.3 The Fan radio station in Dallas on Tuesday the gesture had been “inadvertent” and he had in fact been trying to give a thumbs up to fans celebrating a Cowboys touchdown. “It was inadvertent on my part because that was right after we made our last touchdown, and we were all excited about it,” Jones said. “There wasn’t any antagonistic issue or anything like that. I just put up the wrong show on the hand. That was inadvertently done. I’m not kidding. If you want to call it accidental, you can call it accidental.”
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“It got straightened out pretty quick, but the intention was ‘thumbs up,’ and basically pointing at our fans because everybody was jumping up and down excited.” Jones, who bought the Cowboys in 1989, is one of the most polarizing team owners in the NFL, with his hands-on management style and outspoken media profile often attracting criticism. While he is widely credited with helping transform the Cowboys into the dominant NFL team of the early 1990s, the team has not been back to the Super Bowl since their last triumph in 1996.
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