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Chivas USA says it doesn’t discriminate -- kind of

Chivas USA players Jose Erick Correa, left, Juan Agudelo and Oswaldo Minda celebrate after Correa converted a penalty kick against the Galaxy during an MLS game at Home Depot Center last season.
(Victor Decolongon / Getty Images)
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Earlier in the day we wondered if things could get any more weird for MLS club Chivas USA.

Silly us. How could we have doubted them? Chivas USA, after all, is the team that keeps on giving -- even when it doesn’t mean to.

To recap, the cellar-dwelling Major League Soccer team was sued Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court by two former coaches, Daniel Calichman and Theothoros Chronopoulos, who charged the team with racism, claiming they were fired in March partly because they were not Latino and did not speak Spanish.

Then a dozen hours later, the team sent out a bizarrely worded press release to announce that it had fired its manager, José Luis Sánchez Solá, who is Mexican.

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The team, which is 3-7-2, has not fully explained why it fired Sola -- other than the release, which is impossible to understand. A sample: Sola “had at his disposal a competitive team with the institutional premise of a formal interaction, based in communication in which the club listened to his petitions to incorporate players approved by him. However, he was not able to reflect it with results.”

But Thursday, a day after declining comment on the lawsuit, the team sent out another release in which it makes no mention of the court filing nor the fired coaches. In fact, it doesn’t say why it sent out the notice at all.

But it does say, overall, the team has its heart in the right place.

Chivas USA, it says, “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.”

Missing from that list? National origin and language skills.

The Chivas USA release:

Chivas USA Is an Organization That Respects People Without Distinction

CARSON, Calif. (Thursday, May 3, 2013) - Chivas USA is and has always been an organization that respects everyone without any distinction, and 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.

The entities of Grupo Chivas have received the Certificate for Equality and Gender Model based on the principle of equality and its application constitutes one of the fundamental rights for men and women collaborating with the group, also at the international level.

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Once again, we reiterate our most absolute respect for diversity.

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