Ismail Might Have to Sue to Play in NFL : Pro football: His lawyers are preparing to petition the league to allow him to compete in the CFL and the NFL in the same season.

Raghib (Rocket) Ismail might be considering playing football in two leagues this year.

Thus Ismail’s lawyers are getting ready to petition the NFL to allow him to finish as a Raider next fall when the Canadian season is over, a source close to his advisory team said Thursday.

They are even contemplating a lawsuit against the NFL, if necessary, the source said.

Ismail, a Notre Dame junior, who was unavailable for comment, avoided the subject in a prepared statement. In what was interpreted in Canada as a public relations gesture, he simply stated his intention to play the next four years with the Toronto Argonauts, the club that signed him Saturday fora guaranteed $4.5 million a year.

If there is an Ismail petition, however, the NFL can be expected to fight it, Lamar Hunt, president of the Kansas City Chiefs, said.

“The (two-league) idea isn’t workable competitively,” said Hunt, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who has served the NFL as president of the AFC. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other (NFL) teams.”

There is, in fact, a rule against playing in the NFL and the Canadian Football League the same season.

Would such a prohibition stand up in court?

“This league has been known to apply the same (NFL) rules in different ways,” Raider attorney Joseph L. Alioto said.

“They say (this one) relates to competitive balance, and the one thing you can count on is that (Raider owner) Al Davis won’t challenge it. Davis has never done anything to disturb rules relating to competition on the field. But if the player (challenges) it, he will find plenty of precedents.”

Alioto said one precedent is the multimillion-dollar suit by Billy Sullivan against the NFL, which Sullivan claims denied him the right to sell 49% of the New England Patriots. This, even though the 49ers are corporate-owned, and the Giants are owned equally by Lawrence Tisch and Wellington Mara.

A Sullivan lawyer, Alioto said the NFL has interpreted that rule requiring majority ownership in two ways.

Whether Ismail will be able to get into the NFL in November--with four or five regular-season games remaining plus the postseason--will turn on the legality of the league’s reasons for rejecting him, if it does reject him, NFL people said.

“If it’s stashing, that doesn’t apply in this case,” Alioto said.

Hunt added: “It’s related to stashing, but it’s a little different. Stashing is putting one of your players in another league, keeping him off waivers and you alone have access to him.

“What’s involved in the (Ismail case) is beefing up your team with a player brought down from Canada for the December championship run. If you lose your two quarterbacks Thanksgiving Day, for example, that’s the luck of the draw. It isn’t fair to the rest of the (NFL) for you to go up to Canada and bring down a Grey Cup quarterback.”

Bruce McNall, the majority owner of the Argonauts, in an apparent effort to calm fans who have been worried that Ismail will leave the team early, said in a statement:

“I am absolutely, in no way, contemplating the thought, nor is it even permissible, for Rocket to play in the NFL following the completion of the CFL season, under their current rule strictures.

“As I have stated over the course of the past five days, Rocket and his representatives both know that I would not stand in the way if an opportunity of this nature came along that carried with it a benefit to all parties involved. However, under current NFL rules, the only way Ismail could play in both leagues would be to leave our CFL season early in order to play in the NFL. There is no question . . . that we would not allow Rocket, under any circumstances, to leave mid-season, nor would he even consider such a request.”