LA Galaxy releases Aleksandar Katai after wife’s racist posts
Two days ago Aleksandar Katai’s wife posted some racist comments on her Instagram account, so Los Angeles Galaxy decided to let the Serbian footballer go.
Los Angeles Galaxy announced on Friday 5 June that the club and Aleksandar Katai have mutually agreed to part ways following his wife’s racist comments on Instagram two days before. It all happened on Wednesday when Tea Katai posted a photo with a caption written in Serbian urging police to kill protesters in New York and another picture of a woman carrying boxes with the caption “Black Nikes Matter.”
Police urged to kill protestors
Aleksandar Katai joined LA Galaxy this season and he played the two games of the current 2020 campaign before it got suspended due to Covid-19. The MLS franchise reached a financial agreement with Katai and they don’t have any further financial obligations with him.
The Instagram posts from Tea Katai have been taken down since the news broke but the fans' response was quick and they were demanding Galaxy to release the Serbian footballer. They went as far as going outside the Dignity Health Sports Park with a banner stating, “No Racists in Our Club” with Katai’s number 7 with a red slash through it.
Later on Wednesday Katai posted a message on Instagram saying that the post was a “mistake from my family” and that he was going to take full responsibility for his wife’s actions. In the same post he said it will take time to gain the fans support and he said he was “sorry for the pain these posts have caused to the Galaxy family and all allies in the fight against racism.”
Katai's numbers in the MLS
Katai arrived as a free agent on 31 December and he joined Major League Soccer in 2018 with Chicago Fire after a career in Europe. The Serbian scored 18 goals in his first two seasons in Chicago, who bought him from Alaves in Spain’s La Liga.