Former Miami Hurricanes running back Tyrone Moss flatly denied the allegation in last week's Yahoo! Sports report that he received a payment of $1,000 from booster Nevin Shapiro, Local10.com reports.
Shapiro told Yahoo! Sports that he gave Moss, along with 71 other Miami football players, extra benefits from 2002 to 2010 which included money, cars, yacht trips, jewelry, televisions and even sex from prostitutes.
The Ponzi scheme mastermind alleged that he paid Moss $1,000 during their first meeting together on his $1.6 million yacht.
"I don’t care how it was quoted, I don’t care how it was written or I don’t care how it was said," Moss said, per Local10.com. "But just to let everyone know, I have never been involved with Nevin. I have no ties to Nevin. I have never taken any money from him, and I have never been on that guy’s boat. I just wanted to clear the air, because a lot of people around here are saying this, saying that."
Moss is the first player alleged in the report to deny Shapiro's claims. Other former Miami players have either changed the subject or denied to comment on the scandal.
Antrel Rolle, former Hurricanes cornerback and current Arizona Cardinal, said last week that there's nothing for him to comment on and that he is "just going to let him [Shapiro] do his talking because to me it is really irrelevant and don't concern me at this point."
Calais Campbell, Rolle's teammate in Arizona, said that he didn't think he broke any compliance rules during his tenure at Miami.
The NCAA said on Friday that the "death penalty" could be an option as punishment. The only other football program to receive such discipline was Southern Methodist University in the 1980s.