Major League Soccer on Monday gave D.C. United forward Nigel Robertha permission to resume team activities but did not reinstate teammate Taxi Fountas, three days after both were placed on administrative leave following what people familiar with the situation described as a locker room confrontation.
According to two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe was ongoing, the incident occurred when Fountas grew frustrated with Robertha’s second-half performance. They exchanged words on the field, and the issue escalated in the locker room. One person said Robertha struck Fountas with a foam roller used for stretching. Fountas then berated his teammate with expletives, two people said.
Robertha, who is Black, accused Fountas, who is White, of using a racial slur, two people said. The Athletic first reported details of the confrontation.
A United spokesman said the team had no additional comment on the matter. An MLS official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Robertha, a reserve forward from the Netherlands who recently returned from a long-term ankle injury, has scored one goal in seven appearances this year and six over three seasons with United. Fountas, a Greece national team regular, a 2022 MLS all-star and United’s third-highest-paid player, has six goals in 17 matches this season after leading the club with 12 tallies last year.
This is not the first racial allegation to be aired against Fountas, who came to D.C. in March 2022 on a transfer from Austrian club Rapid Vienna. Fountas’s debut season was marred by a September incident in which Aimé Mabika, then with Inter Miami, accused him of using a racial slur during a matchup at Audi Field. MLS launched an investigation and said it found the allegation to be “credible” but could not “independently verify” it. Fountas denied the accusation but did not play in United’s final two games of the season after being granted additional time off by Coach Wayne Rooney.
Off-field issues have cast a pall over United since the MLS All-Star Game returned to Washington last week for the first time in 19 years. Hours before announcing Robertha and Fountas were on leave, United fired athletic trainer Reade Whitney for displaying a “discriminatory hand gesture” — the “okay” sign, which has increasingly been adopted by white supremacists and the far right — in a staff photo taken at an All-Star Game training session.
United returns to the field Wednesday night when it plays at CF Montreal in the Leagues Cup, a vastly expanded edition of a tournament featuring every team from MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX. D.C. will host Mexican club Pumas on Saturday night at Audi Field to conclude the tournament’s two-game group stage.
Rooney’s team, which sits in the ninth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot with 10 regular season matches remaining, doesn’t resume MLS action until Aug. 20.
Steven Goff and Bailey Johnson contributed to this report.
