The Cuban volleyball player, Ailama Cese Montalvo, will leave the Yekaterinburg Uralochka after during the final of the Russian league the coach of the rival team, Lokomotiv, called her “cute”.
“The season is over and I take only the best from each of you (…) Thank you for the opportunity to play for this great club,” he said in his farewell message on social media.
The departure of the Cuban player was confirmed by the board of directors of the Urals clubaccording to Sport-Express.
The scandal broke during a time out when Lokomotiv Kaliningrad coach Andrei Voronkov said to one of his players: “Why are you blocking that monkey again?”
The phrase was captured live by television cameras, which caused a great scandal, but the coach has never come to apologize.
Montalvo, who arrived in Russia in 2019 and whose contract expires in the summer, assured after the game that the insult had not affected him not at all, although he criticized the lack of professional ethics of Voronkov, whose team won the title.
“What I know is that I’m proud of the color of my skin,” she said as soon as the game ended and thanked her teammates, directors and fans of Uralochka for the support received after the incident.