Arena team owner didn’t approve Vick offer
‘I’m a dog lover and I don’t want anything to do with (Vick)’, he says
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ALBANY, N.Y. - The owner of a minor league football team that offered Michael Vick a contract told a newspaper he didn’t know about the publicity stunt and would not have approved it.
“I’m a dog lover and I don’t want anything to do with (Vick),” Albany Firebirds owner Walter Robb told The Times Union for a story posted on its Web site Tuesday night.
Earlier in the day, the team an arenafootball2 franchise, announced it had offered the 28-year-old quarterback a one-year contract at the league standard: $200 a week plus a $50 bonus for a win.
“That’s a joke,” Robb said. “Can you imagine him playing for $200 a week? I think (the offer) was a big mistake.”
The announcement was later pulled from the team’s Web site.
Firebirds general manager Garen Szablewski told The Times Union the team’s marketing department came up with the idea to make an offer to Vick.
“The process wasn’t thought through properly,” Szablewski said. “The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.”
Vick played for the Atlanta Falcons for six seasons before being convicted of bankrolling an interstate dog fighting business.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has not said if he will lift Vick’s suspension after he completes a 23-month prison sentence. Vick goes from federal prison to home confinement next month.
The Firebirds’ contract offer also required Vick donate $100,000 to a local humane society.
A call to Vick’s agent when the announcement of an offer was made was not immediately returned.
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