SPORT: Football
PETS VIOLENCES>/br>KURT Zouma was today kicked out of the West Ham squad and fined $339,000 because of his cat.

The RSPCA has con­firmed the defend­er’s cats were also seized after a clip emerged of the 27-year-old Pre­mier League star attack­ing his pet at his mul­ti-mil­lion pound Essex mansion.

The defend­er will not take part in this Sun­day’s Pre­mier League clash against Leices­ter City.

This fol­lows a huge pub­lic back­lash after the France inter­na­tion­al played against Wat­ford last night — where he was booed by BOTH sets of fans.

The foot­baller, who makes $170,000 a week, has now been fined $339,000 by West Ham.

The club said Zouma had been fined “the max­i­mum pos­si­ble amount fol­low­ing his actions in the video”.

A state­ment said: “The play­er imme­di­ate­ly accept­ed the fine, which will be donat­ed to ani­mal wel­fare charities.

“West Ham Unit­ed would like to reit­er­ate their con­dem­na­tion of Kurt’s actions and make it clear that the mat­ter con­tin­ues to be treat­ed with the utmost seriousness.”

Zouma was filmed kick­ing one of his two cats like a soc­cer ball and knock­ing it out of the hands of a child in the dis­turb­ing footage.

He issued a creep­ing apol­o­gy after the film, shared by his broth­er Yoan on Snapchat, was shown exclu­sive­ly by The Sun.

The RSPCA con­firmed today that they have seized Zouma’s cats.

A spokesper­son for the char­i­ty said: “Both cats are now in the care of the RSPCA.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is and always has been the wel­fare of these cats.

“They have been tak­en for a check to a vet and will then remain in our care while the inves­ti­ga­tion continues.

“We are grate­ful to every­one who has expressed con­cern for these cats. We were address­ing this issue before the video went viral online and are investigating.”

Essex Police said last night they were car­ry­ing out ‘urgent inquiries’ into the video — but The Sun under­stands the force will now drop the investigation.

More than 120,000 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion call­ing for Zouma to be pros­e­cut­ed over the footage and banned from keep­ing animals.

The Change.org peti­tion, start­ed by Matthew Dixon, read: “Pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller Kurt Zouma was filmed hor­ri­bly abus­ing a help­less animal.

“He should be pros­e­cut­ed for his actions.”

Mr Dixon wrote: “Thank you to every­one who signed the petition.

“This ‘man’ can’t be allowed to get away with mis­treat­ing this poor cat like this.”

It is under­stood the clip was filmed at one of Zouma’s prop­er­ties in the Essex area — but police are set to announce today they will no longer be investigating.

An Essex Police spokesper­son said last night: ‘We are aware of a video cir­cu­lat­ing on social media of an inci­dent involv­ing a cat which mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ties may find distressing.

“We have recent­ly been made aware that this inci­dent may have tak­en place in Essex and we are in con­tact with the RSPCA and urgent inquiries are underway.”

But sources said the case would now be hand­ed over to the RSPCA to deal with itself, despite thou­sands of peo­ple call­ing for the foot­baller to be prosecuted.

Mean­while, lawyers work­ing for the Fon­da­tion 30 mil­lions d’amis — the largest ani­mal rights group in France — have con­tact­ed prosecutors.

Accord­ing to the laws in France, French cit­i­zens can be pros­e­cut­ed for crim­i­nal acts com­mit­ted abroad.