For the first time since 2010, the University of Miami Hurricanes football team will be permitted to play in a post-season game, but the football team will lose nine scholarships, and the men's basketball team will lose three more as penalties from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the Associated Press reported.
The sanctions were announced on Tuesday, after an 18-week wait, which Miami officials had hoped would be over in no more than eight weeks after a meeting with the committee in June, according to the AP.
For the past two years, the ban on post-season football games has been self-imposed by the school as punishment for illegal recruiting by former "booster" Nevin Shapiro who contacted NCAA in February 2011, leading to a full-blown investigation.
Shapiro, who is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for conducting a $930 million Ponzi scheme, told NCAA he's spent millions from 2002-2010 on football and men's basketball recruits, athletes and coaches, the AP reported.
In a study of the allegations by the AP, NCAA found $173,330 in extra benefits with more than half of that amount going to former Hurricane players Vince Wilfork and Antrel Rolle. The allegations and investigations caused the Hurricanes to miss out on two bowl games and the opportunity to play in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game last year.
The reduction of the athletic scholarships will be spread out over the next three years and UM will also serves three years of probation, the AP reported.
According to the AP, Hurricanes' staff will also be reprimanded Cane's former basketball coach Frank Haith, who is now at Missouri, will have to sit out the first five games in the upcoming season, and three former assistant coaches were given "two-year show-cause" bans, which means the ban will follow them even if they are hired by another institution.
Any staff members for any sport send an "impermissible" text to a recruit, will be fined $100 per message and will be suspended from recruiting activities for seven days, the AP reported.
Although the NCAA acknowledged UM's self-imposed bans, the committee said Miami lacked "institutional control" in regards to monitoring Shapiro, but added the self-imposing bans was a wise decision, according to the AP. Miami accepted the punishment and will not appeal the decision.
