A lawyer for Colin Kaepernick says an NFL owner testified under oath that he changed his mind about signing the quarterback after Donald Trump said players protesting during the national anthem should be fired.

Kaepernick hired attorney Mark Geragos as he filed a grievance case claiming owners have colluded to keep him out of the league after he knelt during the national anthem to highlight racial injustice in the United States. Under the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement teams and the NFL are forbidden from coming together to deprive a player of employment.

Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013, left San Francisco at the end of the 2016 season and has not been picked up by a team since. The fact that teams with a need for a quarterback have passed up the chance to sign Kaepernick left many to believe owners are either punishing him for his stance or believe his presence would alienate fans.

Will Colin Kaepernick's collusion case win him a place back in the NFL? Read more

A number of NFL owners have been called to testify in the collusion case. On the Straight Aim podcast this week, Geragos said one owner had admitted under oath that he changed his mind because of Trump’s stance on the anthem protests.

“Maybe you can prove that [New England Patriots owner] Bob Kraft, for example, was scared of what the president might do, but for collusion you would need to show that that fear actually influenced the owners by clear and convincing evidence. So, that’s kind of a high burden,” says Straight Aim host Amy Dash.

“Well, unless you’ve got an owner under penalty of perjury testifying that he changed his mind after he was told what Trump said,” replies Geragos.

When Dash asks Geragos if he has such evidence, he replies: “Yeah. Well, bingo.” Geragos does not imply that Kraft is the owner in question.

Geragos’s statement appears to be backed up by a report in the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper says it received copies of some of the testimony from owners. “I was totally supportive of [the protests] until Trump made his statement,” said Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross in his deposition. In Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’s statement he describes how Trump told him: “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”

Last week NFL owners issued new guidelines that will see teams fined if their players or staff do not show appropriate “respect” for the national anthem. According to the new rules, “a club will be fined by the league if its personnel are on the field and do not stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem”.

Geragos said he believes the league adopted the new rules to appease white, conservative fans, who make up the majority of the league’s fanbase. Surveys have revealed that a majority of black Americans support the protests started by Kaepernick, while the majority of whites oppose them. “[The NFL has] made the choice they are gonna opt on the white nationalistic side as opposed to any other demographic,” said Geragos.

Last week, Trump said that players “maybe ... shouldn’t be in the country” if they don’t stand for the national anthem.