Angel City FC has condemned the “recent actions and statements” of a former player who appears to be captured in a video giving a Nazi salute at pro-Israel demonstrators Sunday in Beverly Hills.
Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel is shown shouting “Heil Hitler!” and giving the Sieg Heil salute out of the passenger side window of a car driven by a man, according to a video posted on X on Monday by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism.
Members of the pro-Israel crowd responded with, “Shame on you!”
The StopAntisemitism group asked for help in identifying the two people in the vehicle. That evening, it posted an update identifying the woman as “Stefany Neyra.”
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A spokesperson for StopAntisemitism told The Times via email that the information was sent to the organization by a confidential source.
Ferrer Van Ginkel seems to have gone by the name Stefany C. Neyra on her social media accounts, which have since been deactivated. StopAntisemitism posted a screenshot of an Instagram account with the Neyra name and the handle @stefvangi21 that included photos that appear to be of Ferrer Van Ginkel. She could not immediately be reached for comment.
As tensions over the Israel-Hamas war continue to intensify in the U.S., Angel City FC attempted to distance itself from Ferrer Van Ginkel with a post on X on Monday night.
Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel (stefvangi21) does not play for Angel City Football Club, nor has she been affiliated with the club since November 2022.
We condemn her recent actions and statements.
— Angel City FC (@weareangelcity) November 7, 2023
“Stefany Ferrer Van Ginkel (stefvangi21) does not play for Angel City Football Club, nor has she been affiliated with the club since November 2022,” the club wrote. “We condemn her recent actions and statements.”
In response to further questions for this article, Angel City FC referred The Times back to that statement.
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Ferrer Van Ginkel posted a video to Instagram on Monday night, before the account was deactivated, that appeared to address the incident at the rally. In the clip, Ferrer Van Ginkel sits silently next to a man, who offers an apology on behalf of both of them.
“I know we have approached the situation with hate and made it worse with our actions,” the man says in the video. “We acted childish and it’s the wrong way to approach any situation that we live in. All we can do is become better, learn a lesson from this. We cannot change the past. And we just wanted to apologize and ask for you guys to understand and stop the hate. We just wanna spread love from now on. We understand we did the wrong thing.”
Ferrer Van Ginkel, 25, grew up in Brazil, appeared in a British reality show and played with Tigres of Mexico’s Liga MX Femenil before playing for Angel City during its inaugural season in 2022. Her contract was not renewed after that campaign, and she does not seem to have played professionally since then.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
