On Saturday, former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick dissed the NFL by skipping out on a tryout the organization setup for him, apparently because he wasn’t allowed to bring his own camera crew.
Instead, the anthem-kneeler setup his own workout where a bevy of reporters showed up.
Speaking to the press, Kaepernick blamed the NFL and their “lack of transparency” for his bailing on the tryout.
“I appreciate y’all coming out. That means a lot to me. Our biggest thing with everything today was making sure we had transparency with what went on,” said Kaepernick, according to The Hill. “We weren’t getting that elsewhere so we came out here. It’s important that y’all are here.”
“Y’all have been attacked for the last three years. Y’all continue to be attacked,” he said. “We appreciate what y’all do. We appreciate you being here today, and we appreciate the work that you do for the people in telling the truth. That’s what we want with everything”
“I’ve been ready for three years. I’ve been denied for three years,” the former quarterback continued. “We all know why I came out here today and showed it today in front of everybody. We have nothing to hide, so we’re waiting for the 32 owners, 32 teams, Roger Goodell, all of them to stop running. To stop running from the truth. To stop running from the people. We’re out here. We’re ready to play. We’re ready to go anywhere.”
“I’ll interview with any team at any time. I’ve been ready. I’m staying ready, and I’ll continue to be ready,” concluded the athlete. “… We’ll continue to give you updates as we hear. We’ll be waiting to hear from Roger Goodell, the NFL, the 32 teams. We’ll let you know if we hear from them. Ball’s in their court, we’ll let you know.”
As reported by The Daily Wire, Kaepernick cancelled the workout abruptly on Saturday, about a half hour before the session was supposed to begin, apparently because he had to sign a liability waiver and wasn’t allowed to bring his own camera crew.
However, according to the NFL, the waiver in question was a “standard liability waiver based on the waiver used by National Invitational Camp at all NFL Combines and by NFL clubs when trying out free agent players.”
Additionally, the 32-year-old did not inform them of his request to have his own personal camera crew attend the event until Friday night, the NFL said in a statement: “We heard for the first time last night, around the same time we heard from Nike, that Colin wanted to bring his own video crew. We heard for the first time this afternoon that Colin wanted to open the event to all media.”
While playing for the 49ers in 2016, Kaepernick started protesting the national anthem “because America ‘oppresses’ minorities and allows its cops to ‘murder’ innocent people of color.”
Kaepernick, a multimillionaire sponsored by Nike, sported a “Kunta Kinte” t-shirt at the event.
WATCH:
Colin Kaepernick made a 90 second statement before leaving pic.twitter.com/QlH2RTnLp5
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) November 16, 2019
Related: Kaepernick Skips Workout Organized By NFL, Wears T-Shirt Comparing Himself To A Slave