Former Chivas USA human resources and administrative manager Cynthia Craig filed the second lawsuit in four months against her former employer, Daily Breeze reported on Wednesday. She, like former academy coaches Daniel Calichman and Theothoros Chronopoulos, alleges discriminatory practices against non-Latinos at the club.
Most of Craig’s suit is nothing new, as she claims she was “harassed” by the team’s ownership because she could not speak Spanish. Unlike Calichman and Chronopoulos, she was not fired but elected to leave her job.
What the new lawsuit provides is a different perspective on the same phenomena. From her post in human resources, Craig was privy to discriminatory and unjustified termination practices, supposedly being told by owner Jorge Vergara to “just get it done” when he asked her to fire somebody.
One new wrinkle that Craig presents is the allegation that Chivas USA knowingly hired four Mexican coaches in January who had no legal permission to work in the United States. When Craig refused to put them on the company payroll, the owners paid them through their own channels. Those coaches eventually received work visas in April.
The final quote in Daily Breeze’s story sums up Chivas USA’s practices to this point, and with a former human resources employee now making serious allegations, Major League Soccer could be incentivized to act sooner rather than later with regard to the team’s ownership:
