World-champion wrestler drops lawsuit against NCAA over ISU eligibility

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](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/p90qcee7He5pX\_KsoI5X1A--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/iowa\_capital\_dispatch\_articles\_671/fcc8641efdc2cfb42a76ab318b375090) (Photo by simpson33 via iStock / Getty Images Plus) A world-champion Cuban wrestler has dismissed his lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association over rules that he said unfairly barred him from wrestling for Iowa State University. The lawsuit, filed in December 2025, was voluntarily dismissed late last week by lawyers for Reineri Andreu Ortega, a student and prospective college wrestler at ISU, with no public disclosure as to whether a settlement had been reached. The lawsuit challenged 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. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Attorneys for Ortega argued the NCAA’s application of the rule violates antitrust laws and unjustifiably restrained the ability of Ortega and other college athletes to “earn meaningful compensation that is now available to (other) NCAA Division I athletes.” The lawsuit had 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 claimed. However, the lawsuit added, 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, the lawsuit argues. 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 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 said the rule has had the effect of barring students from competing in NCAA sports. 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 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 . 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 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. The lawsuit claimed 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. Ortega claimed the NCAA had 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 was necessary. The lawsuit also sought a permanent injunction that would 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, had sought to dismiss the case, arguing that enjoining the application of the five-year rule would not render Ortega eligible to compete on Iowa State’s wrestling team because there are other factors that bar his competition that were unchallenged in the lawsuit. The NCAA also argued that only restraints that are “commercial in nature” are subject to provisions of the Sherman Act, and the five-year rule is not commercial.