A few days ago, a video surfaced on social media showing a footballer booting his pet cat in his kitchen, throwing a designer shoe at the scared cat and even slapping his cat in front of his child as another voice — allegedly his brother who was filming him, was heard laughing in the background.
A video obtained by The Sun allegedly shows footballer Kurt Zouma kicking and hitting his cat.
It’s absolutely disgusting and disturbing footage. I hope he is prosecuted for animal cruelty. pic.twitter.com/3K7xMeHh5j
Kurt Happy Zouma, 27, a defender for West Ham might not feel very happy after the video was shared by The Sun (UK) four days ago. The enraged community made official complaints and not long after that, the RSPCA seized both his cats. Allegedly, he was fined his two weeks wages which amounted to £250,000 (that would be donated to animal welfare charities) and was said to be “benched” for Sunday’s Premier League clash between West Ham and Leicester City. However, from most recent news, the fine was yet to be paid and West Ham’s boss, David Moyes said that Zouma is available for the Leicester City game.
Last year in the UK, a new Bill was passed for tougher laws on animal abuse under the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill. This includes dog fight organisers, farmers who neglect their farm animals (like horses) or people who abuse puppies or kittens and others. The RSPCA can proceed further with this video of Zouma as proof — as supported by thousands in the community, but any updates on that are yet to be seen.
As someone who loves cats — and animals in general, I feel like the fine and “lesson” given to Zouma was quite insignificant. The man can surely afford £250,000 and probably is even happy that both his cats were taken away, considering how he abused them and doesn’t seem to care for them. Not forgetting to mention that he shows this “bad behaviour” to his young child who might pick up such outrageous behaviour and consider abusing animals an “acceptable” action in the future — as I quote what Zouma himself said in an apology statement:
“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 behaviour was an isolated incident that will not happen again.”
Source
If a small child is led to believe that kicking, slapping and throwing things at “loved and cherished” living beings of the family are acceptable, I wouldn’t want to know what the child would do when he’s a grown-up and have issues with a “loved and cherished” human being in the future.
Even if Zouma justified his actions by saying that he did those things because he was angry the Bengal cats had accidentally smashed a vase or tore down a light fixture, this is not the way to treat your pet animals.
What did he expect from a Bengal anyway? Did he think because he had money he could just go out and buy UK’s most expensive and rarest domesticated cats without learning about them or their personalities? Bengals are very active cats and they need exercises daily to calm down. The best part about Bengals however, is they also have very friendly personalities and they show loyalty similar to that of dogs. If you want cats that would lounge and sleep three-quarters of the day, get yourself a Persian! Furthermore, cats are sentient beings that experience pain and fear so beating them up will make them suffer physically and mentally. If you want your house to be in perfect condition all the time, don’t have a pet, get robots instead.
Still, those are not my cats and this incident does not happen in my area so I shouldn’t be overreacting right? But am I?
Aliza M. is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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