NEW YORK (AFP) - National Football League owners probably will terminate their collective bargaining agreement with the players union, perhaps as quickly as Tuesday's annual meeting, ESPN reported Friday.

Citing unnamed league sources, the network reported that a management source said there is a "high likelihood" the owners will use their option to wipe out the deal, a move that could spark a work stoppage by 2011.

A union source told ESPN: "We expect it to happen."

Such a decision is not expected to have a great impact on the 2008 and 2009 NFL seasons but would mean the NFL would have no salary cap during the 2010 season while unrestricted free agency for players would jump from four to six years. The annual draft process for new talent would also end after 2011.

Owners, who meet in Atlanta next week, approved the deal in 2006 but there was unhappiness among those in smaller cities, Buffalo and Cincinnati owners voting against the agreement.

Players and owners can axe the agreement in either 2008 or 2009 under terms of the deal, with a deadline of November 8 to do so this year.

The NFL has not had a labor work stoppage since 1987, when a strike by the players led to replacement teams being assembled by owners in three regular-season games before the union agreed to return to work.

NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw took command and decertified the union, leading to an anti-trust lawsuit won by the players and leading to a 1993 labor deal that created salary caps and unrestricted free agency, changing the basic ways under which talent was assembled and kept.

Upshaw has come under criticism recently after saying the players would not "give back" gains made in bargaining, warning of a potential ownership lockout in 2011 at the union's annual meeting in March.

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