Walter Robb, owner of the Albany Firebirds minor league football team, said he didn’t know about the publicity stunt to offer Michael Vick a contract and would not have approved it.
“I’m a dog lover and I don’t want anything to do with [Vick],” Firebirds owner Robb told The Times Union.
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 said 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 to 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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