The lawyer for former Minnesota Vikings
punter Chris Kluwe said Tuesday that the organization wants to keep
an internal investigation private.
Lawyer Clayton Halunen accused the team
of reneging on a pledge to release the report, and threatened to sue
the organization, the AP reported.
In January, Kluwe alleged that he was
fired from the team by special-teams coordinator Priefer, whom he
called a “bigot,” and two “cowards”: then-head coach Leslie
Frazier and general manager Rick Spielman.
Kluwe claimed that Priefer made several
anti-gay comments in the course of objecting to his advocacy on the
issue of marriage equality and quoted Priefer as saying during a team
meeting, “We should round up all the gays, send them to an island,
and then nuke it until it glows.”
Priefer “vehemently” denied the
charges and the Vikings hired outside counsel to investigate the
claims.
Making the report public, Kluwe told
reporters, was important “because not only did I say this is what
happened but this is something that happens in work environments
across the country.”
“I think it's just important that
everyone is able to see what's there,” Kluwe added. “Yeah, it'll
probably hurt. These things always do. But the only way we're ever
going to fix it is if we acknowledge that.”
In a statement, the Vikings denied
Halunen's claim that they refuse to release the report.