NFL Players Arrested At London Nightclub. Source: Things Got ‘Physical’

Details have begun to emerge about what led to the arrest of four Jacksonville Jaguars at “an aerial show club” in London Saturday night ahead of their big game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Wembley Stadium Sunday.

“Things got pretty heated and there was a lot of swearing and shouting and things became physical,” a source told The Sun. “In terms of preparation for their match, you couldn’t think of anything worse.”

The four players reportedly involved were safeties Barry Church, Ronnie Harrison and Jarrod Wilson and corner D.J. Hayden.

Around 4 a.m, police detained the players on suspicion of “fraud by false representation,” a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

“Officers attended and spoke with a group of males who had allegedly been attempting to leave the venue without paying a large bill,” said the spokesperson. “Four men aged in their 20s were subsequently arrested on suspicion of fraud by false representation and taken to a central London police station for questioning. They were all subsequently released with no further action.”

NFL Network’s Ian Rapaport reported Sunday that five other players were allegedly at the club, but were not detained: Telvin Smith, Myles Jack, Leon Jacobs, Dante Fowler, and TJ Yeldon.

The confrontation revolved around the bill, which reportedly ran up to around $64,000. When the players, disputing the inclusion of bottles of champagne and vodka they believed were on the house, attempted to walk out, things allegedly got tense between the players and the bouncers. NFL.com reports:

The players went to a club on Friday night, were sent bottles of champagne and other high-end liquors and ran up a huge bill, sources told Rapoport. The players believed that the bottles were comped, but instead they were on their bill. When the bill arrived, the players refused to pay it, believing that it was not what they owed. An argument ensued and local police made several arrests.

“The total bill was in the region of £50,000 and some of the lads tried to leave the club but were prevented from doing so by security,” the Sun’s source said.

Church addressed the “misunderstanding” after the game, which the Jags lost, Sunday.

“There was definitely a misunderstanding, but as far as my actions are concerned, I take full responsibility,” he told the press. “I don’t want to be a distraction or anything like that to my team and my teammates, but we handled it as a private matter within the team and we’ll just go from there.”

Church didn’t offer many details, including if the incident involved any physical confrontations.

“I don’t want to get into any details about that, but we were just hanging out as a team. That’s it,” he said. “It’s just disappointing how it went down. I didn’t want to be a distraction or anything like that, but hey, it happened. I took full responsibility for it with my teammates, and we just weren’t able to pull a victory out today. It just kind of adds to it. That’s what happened.”

“We are aware that four of our players were detained over restitution of a bill,” the Jaguars said in a statement, NFL.com reports. “The matter is being resolved and the players are with the team. Any discipline will be handled internally.”

The head coach of the Jags told the media that they were looking into the incident and expressed concern about how off the field behavior might impact on the field performance. “Obviously, before we start going on the field to perform better, we’ve got to take a good look at what we’re doing all the other times — when we’re in the building, out of the building and all those things,” he said.