The Saskatchewan Roughriders have released receiver Ajou Ajou in response to what the team said in a Thursday news release was a CFL investigation that found he\u2019d violated the league\u2019s gender-based violence and harassment policy.<\/p>\n
In a news release the league said it was made aware in January of multiple allegations that Ajou had made \u201caggressive and unwelcome physical contact with multiple women at a restaurant in Regina.\u201d<\/p>\n
As told to SportsCage.com by Regina Provincial Court staff ahead of the Riders\u2019 11:15 a.m. news conference Thursday, no criminal charges were pending against Ajou.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur players and our staff are required to complete education for gender-based violence and harassment every single year,\u201d Riders general manager Jeremy O\u2019Day told reporters in a Thursday morning media availability. \u201cThis is reinforced multiple times throughout the year. Our expectations are that our players and staff treat people with respect and integrity. These violations clearly did not meet that standard for our organization and they will not be tolerated. That is why we chose to release Ajou today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ajou played college football in the United States for Clemson, South Florida and Garden City, before being drafted by the Riders in 2024.<\/p>\n
He dressed for 12 games with the Riders in 2024 and eight more in 2025, hauling in 42 receptions for a combined 519 yards and two touchdowns over two seasons.<\/p>\n
While O\u2019Day was explicit in speaking to local media that Ajou would never again be a Roughrider, the CFL said in its own statement that Ajou may return to the league after completing \u201ca minimum of 15 mandatory counselling sessions conducted by a gender-based violence expert, a psychological assessment by another independent expert and a meeting\u201d with commissioner Stewart Johnson.<\/p>\n
That the alleged incident occurred on the day of the team\u2019s Grey Cup parade, when players were seen on live TV openly drinking alcohol as they paraded down Albert Street in Regina and later appeared on\u00a0the premier\u2019s balcony at the provincial legislature, was less of a concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think (head coach) Corey (Mace), he holds the team to a very high standard,\u201d said O\u2019Day. \u201cCorey\u2019s involved in the community more than any head coach I\u2019ve ever been around. Corey is constantly talking to our players about the importance of being respectful and handling yourself with integrity again more than any other coach that I\u2019ve been around. He also conducts his own personal life in that manner<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think what you see is you see a team of players that are celebrating, trying to enjoy a championship. And I think that, not that it\u2019s right or wrong but I think it\u2019s pretty common, the celebrations that happen after winning a championship and I think there\u2019s a line that you have to make sure that you don\u2019t cross and obviously you want to make sure everyone is staying as safe as possible, so tough one to answer because you want everyone to enjoy their hard work but you also want them to do it in a responsible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders have released receiver Ajou Ajou in response to what the team said in a Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,231305,82],"class_list":["post-615253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-cflgrey-cuproughridersajou-ajou","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}