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Alex Morgan among group of soccer players kicked out of Disney World

U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan celebrates after scoring a goal against New Zealand on Sept. 19.
(Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
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A group of Orlando City Soccer Club players, including U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan, were kicked out of a Disney World park during the weekend.

Morgan and Orlando City players Donny Toia and Giles Barnes were among six people listed on an Orange County Sheriff’s Office incident report documenting why they were escorted out of the park and accused of trespassing.

No charges were filed in connection with the incident after the players and their friends left the park.

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Morgan issued an apology via Twitter on Wednesday.

Orlando Pride coach Tom Sermanni deferred to the club for an official response, but he did say during a conference call Tuesday afternoon he expects Morgan to play in the NWSL semifinal match on the road against Portland Saturday.

Morgan, Toia and his wife, Courtney, were escorted out after meeting with deputies and accused of trespass. Barnes also was given a trespass warning, according to the report. The other two people are listed on the report as witnesses.

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According to the report, Epcot managers called deputies to trespass several individuals who were “impaired and verbally aggressive.”

Barnes cut in front of another guest inside the U.K. pub and they later got into a verbal argument, the report says. He used curse words and was escorted out of the pub to be trespassed. As he was being taken out, the deputies were called back to help with other individuals.

“As we passed Spaceship Earth, I observed several people being escorted to the front,” a deputy wrote. “They were all being very loud and belligerent toward staff around guests.

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“I observed a white female, who was later identified as Alexandria Morgan yelling, screaming and taken (sic) video and possibly pictures. She appeared to be highly impaired.”

The report goes on to say a deputy heard Morgan “make a loud verbal statement” that she knows the Orlando SWAT team.

Donny Toia was yelling with one of the managers and said he wanted to leave the park on his own instead of waiting to be escorted out, according to the incident report. When he was informed by a deputy he was not free to leave on his own, Toia got verbally aggressive and turned toward the deputy in an aggressive manner. The deputy then grabbed Toia’s left arm and spun him around, after which Toia said he could walk on his own and cooperated as he was led to a conference with his wife and Morgan.

The deputy described the three as “being belligerent, with screaming and yelling,” according to the incident report.

All three were eventually escorted out of the park.

Orlando City officials were reviewing the incident on Tuesday.

“The Orlando City SC organization is aware of a situation that occurred at Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park earlier this week and is awaiting official communication from Disney or the Orange County Police Department,” read a statement the club gave to the Sentinel on Tuesday afternoon. “The club will address the matter internally when there is a full understanding of what occurred.”

The incident was first reported by TMZ Sports.

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A photo posted to Morgan’s Instagram account showed a large group of players with their significant others and friends outside a restaurant at Epcot. The group included Morgan’s husband, Orlando City midfielder Servando Carrasco, and fellow Lions Dom Dwyer, Seb Hines, Donny Toia, Joe Bendik, Scott Sutter, Giles Barnes and Dillon Powers, among others.

The caption on the photo read, “Annual around the world in 8 hours. No big.”

Orlando City is mostly off this week due to an international break that includes no Major League Soccer match for the Lions this weekend.

Morgan and the Pride won big on the road over top-ranked North Carolina on Saturday and will travel to Portland Wednesday ahead of their National Women’s Soccer League semifinal against Portland Saturday.

ardelgallo@orlandosentinel.com


UPDATES:

10:55 a.m.: This article was updated with a tweet from Morgan.

This article was originally posted at 7:40 a.m.

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