SPORT: Football
PETS VIOLENCE
West Ham player Kurt Zouma apologizes for violence against his cat.

West Ham foot­baller Kurt Zouma apol­o­gizes after shock­ing video shows him kick­ing a cat
A foot­baller has apol­o­gized after a video emerged of him kick­ing and slap­ping his cat.

Kurt Zouma, who plays for West Ham Unit­ed, admit­ted it was an ‘iso­lat­ed inci­dent’ and he would nev­er harm the ani­mal again.

In the heart­break­ing footage, which was shared by The Sun last night (Feb­ru­ary 7), the French foot­baller can be seen fly­ing his cat around the kitchen before slap­ping it.

In a state­ment to Sky News, the 27-year-old, who is an ambas­sador for a French ani­mal char­i­ty, said: “I want to apol­o­gize for my actions. There is no excuse for my behav­ior. , which I sin­cere­ly regret.

“I also want to say how sor­ry I am to every­one who was upset by the video. I would like to assure every­one that our two cats are per­fect­ly fine and healthy.

“They are loved and cher­ished by our entire fam­i­ly, and this behav­ior was an iso­lat­ed inci­dent that will not hap­pen again.”

Zouma’s club also issued a state­ment say­ing the mat­ter was “han­dled internally”.

A club spokesman said: “West Ham Unit­ed unre­served­ly con­demns the actions of our play­er, Kurt Zouma, in the video that has been circulated.

“We have spo­ken to Kurt and will address the issue inter­nal­ly, but would like to make it clear that we do not con­done ani­mal cru­el­ty in any way.”

And the RSPCA also told the out­let: “This is a very upset­ting video. It is nev­er okay to kick, hit or slap an ani­mal, as pun­ish­ment or otherwise.

“We are very grate­ful to peo­ple who report sus­pect­ed ani­mal suf­fer­ing to us and would like to reas­sure peo­ple that we will always review and, if nec­es­sary, inves­ti­gate any ani­mal wel­fare com­plaints brought to us.”

Footage of the play­er injur­ing the cat began cir­cu­lat­ing on Twit­ter late last night (Feb­ru­ary 7) and since the clip was released peo­ple have been call­ing for action to be taken.

“Kurt Zouma must be pros­e­cut­ed. No one should be allowed to get away with such despi­ca­ble behav­ior! Apolo­gies are not enough,” one said.

How­ev­er, accord­ing to reports, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police have con­firmed that they will not be inves­ti­gat­ing the video.

Accord­ing to the Ani­mal Wel­fare Act 2006, own­ers have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure their ani­mal is “pro­tect­ed from pain, suf­fer­ing, injury and disease”.

Under the DAS Act, the most seri­ous offens­es could see some­one fined £20,000 and sen­tenced to 51 weeks in prison.