The NFL players and owners have been urged to resume talks aimed at ending their bitter labour dispute themselves after a United States judge said she would need two weeks to make a ruling for an injunction against the league's lockout.
The NFL ordered the lockout after talks between the league and the players' union collapsed, plunging America's most popular professional sport into its first work stoppage in almost 25 years.
The league and the players have been unable to reach an agreement over a range of issues, including how to divide up more than $12 billion in annual revenues.
All sides in the dispute, dubbed as a row between billionaires and millionaires, have been heavily criticized by American media and even the U.S. President Barack Obama for squabbling over a fortune at a time when thousands of families were struggling to make ends meet.
