Iowa State University in Ames. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

A world-champion Cuban wrestler, Reineri Andreu Ortega, is suing the National Collegiate Athletic Association over rules that he says have unfairly barred him from wrestling for Iowa State University.

The lawsuit was filed this week by lawyers for Ortega, a student and prospective college wrestler at ISU, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. The lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s so-called “Five-Year Eligibility Clock” and the manner in which the NCAA decides when that clock begins running and thus when a student’s eligibility to compete expires.

Attorneys for Ortega argue that the NCAA’s application of the rule violates antitrust laws and unjustifiably restrains the ability of Ortega and other college athletes to “earn meaningful compensation that is now available to (other) NCAA Division I athletes.”

The lawsuit has its origins in a 2021 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that paved the way for college athletes to receive compensation for use of their names, images, and likenesses. Since then, the market for name, image and likeness compensation opportunities available to NCAA Division I athletes has “exploded into a multi-million dollar industry,” the lawsuit claims.

However, the lawsuit adds, that form of compensation is largely available only to NCAA Division I athletes. Athletes who compete outside of what the lawsuit calls “the NCAA monopoly” have no meaningful opportunity to collect revenue-sharing income or profit from their name, image or likeness.

Under NCAA bylaws, an athlete has five years of eligibility to play four seasons of “intercollegiate competition” in his or her chosen sport. This five-year window is known as as the “eligibility clock” and begins to run from the date on which an athlete registers as a full-time student at any “collegiate institution” – regardless of whether the institution is a member of the NCAA and regardless of their participation in sports.

Lawyers for Ortega say this rule has had the effect of barring students from competing in NCAA sports even if they’ve never competed. They say students such as Ortega “can attend a non-NCAA college for three years without playing any sports, take two years off from school for personal reasons, transfer to a four-year NCAA school, and the student will have used all of their eligibility without ever having competed in a college sport for a non-NCAA or NCAA college.”

Ortega studied in Cuba before coming to ISU

The lawsuit claims Ortega completed high school in Cuba in the spring of 2016, and then, beginning in the fall of 2016, he began taking courses at Manuel Fajardo University in Cuba. In 2017, Ortega began training and wrestling for the Cuban National Team, which has no affiliation to a college or university, while continuing to study at Manuel Fajardo University until the spring of 2019.

Ortega is a two-time U23 world champion and two-time Pan American gold medalist, according to USA Wrestling.

In December 2022, Ortega left the Cuban National Team and came to America as a refugee. In the spring of 2023, Ortega enrolled at ISU where he earned a spot on the wrestling team but without competing during the 2022-23 season.

According to the lawsuit, the NCAA has denied Ortega’s request for eligibility beyond the 2022-23 season due to the five-year rule, indicating Ortega’s eligibility clock started while he was attending Manuel Fajardo University, not when he enrolled at ISU.

Counting the years that a student attends a non-NCAA institution as years on their NCAA eligibility clock is arbitrary and capricious, the lawsuit alleges. “Ortega, and other wrestlers or prospective athletes in other sports who are harmed by this illegal restraint have a small window of time to compete in Division I sports and earn the permissible compensation now available to them,” the lawsuit claims.

Ortega claims that the NCAA has effectively excluded him from an NCAA Division I college career, and because, as a 130-pound athlete, he has very limited pro-wresting opportunities open to him after college, a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring the continued application of the eligibility rule is necessary.

Lawsuit cites pro athletes’ eligibility 

According to the NCAA, the purpose of the five- year rule is to “move student-athletes toward graduation in a timely manner” – eliminating any incentive to remain in school simply to compete. Lawyers for Ortega, however, contend the rule doesn’t exist “for reasons of competitive balance or it would preclude other older athletes from competing” in Division I NCAA sports.

The lawsuit notes that students who graduate high school and become a professional athlete in one sport can play that other sport for years, then go to college and still have five years of eligibility to play four seasons of some other sport.

“The NCAA rules, therefore, do not limit the ability of the former professional athlete to earn permissible compensation while competing in Division I athletics, even though they have had a chance to physically mature well beyond a typical 18-year-old college freshman,” the lawsuit alleges. “For instance, Chris Weinke entered Florida State University as a freshman following a six-year professional baseball career and ended up winning the Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football, at 28 years of age.”

The lawsuit claims the NCAA’s application of the five-year rule violates the Sherman Act by restraining the market for NCAA Division I college athletes by barring Ortega and similarly situated athletes from having an opportunity to earn money through revenue sharing and the use of their name, image and likeness.

As part of the lawsuit, lawyers for Ortega also argue that should the court grant their requested injunction against the NCAA, it must also address a separate NCAA rule. That rule says if a student-athlete who is deemed ineligible by the NCAA is permitted to participate in sports in accordance with the terms of a court order that is later vacated or reversed, the NCAA can take punitive action against the school – such as vacating wins or imposing postseason-competition bans and financial penalties.

The lawsuit seeks an immediate temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and then a permanent injunction that will block the NCAA from applying the five-year rule to students such as Ortega.

The NCAA, which is an association of post-secondary institutions that functions as the governing body of college sports, has yet to file a response to the lawsuit.

The NCAA includes more than 1,100 member colleges and universities organized into three divisions, with 350 of them in Division I.