Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris
Kluwe has said that witnesses can back up his claims against Mike
Priefer.
Kluwe wrote in a scathing op-ed
published last week 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 alleged 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 immediately and “vehemently”
denied the charges. The Vikings responded by hiring outside counsel
to investigate the claims.
Appearing on CNN, Kluwe told host
Anderson Cooper that witnesses can corroborate his story.
“There are witnesses to all the
things I put in that piece on Deadspin,” Kluwe said. “And,
you know, I made sure that I had witnesses, because otherwise that's
a very easy defamation of character case. And it would be pretty
easy for him to prevail in the court of law.”
“I'm 100 percent confident in
everything that I related as how it happened and really encouraged by
the fact that the Vikings are taking it seriously and opening an
independent investigation, because I think once they talk with
people, they'll find out what happened.”
He added that he was “confident”
players would back up his account “because it's the right thing to
do.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)