Two former Chivas USA youth coaches claimed they were fired because they aren't Mexicano or Latino and have filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Major League Soccer team, USA Today reported.
Theothoros Chronopoulos and Daniel Calichman filed the suit on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. They also claimed harassment and realiation based on ethnicity and race and seek unspecified damages. Both coaches claimed that in a November employee meeting, owner of the club Jorge Vergara said that non-Spanish speaking employees should be seen off, according to the Los Angeles Times. "If you don't speak Spanish, you can go work for the (Los Angeles) Galaxy, unless you speak Chinese, which is not even a language," said Vergara.
In a segment of HBO Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel it was reported that "racial discrimination became the rule" in the club under the direction of Vergara. The lawsuit claims the Chivas USA "Mexican-only" policy is a mirror of that in its Guadalajara counterpart.
"While that may be acceptable in Mexico, in California and in our country you can't make decisions on employment based on ethnicity or race," attorney Greg Helmer told USA Today.
In a statement, the club said "Chivas USA is and has always been an organization that respects everyone without any distinction. [The club] knows that its employees are the most valuable asset the company has. That is why it implements the best practices in terms of equality and respect and it stands against any sort of discrimination in terms of gender, health, religion, opinion or physical disabilities."
But the Los Angeles Times pointed out that the official statement doesn't mention language or national origin, the two categories Chronopoulos and Calichman are referred to. They club didn't inform either why it was issuing the statement at all.
Spokeswoman for Chivas USA, Cristina Maillo Belda, refused to make any comments on the lawsuit, according to USA Today.
According to the former coaches, the "Mexican-only" policy wasn't limited to the pitch (having more Mexican players on the MLS team makes them more eligible to play for either Chivas team, according to coach José Luis Sánchez Sola). Chronopoulos said Vergara also wanted to know who among the club's employees, were Mexican or Mexican-American, and that he directed him to gather ethnic information about the children enrolled in the academy and their parents, USA Today reported.
According to the suit, Vergara wanted the team to go back to its Mexican roots.