You think? The club and Zouma have lost sponsors over this; the club has fined him over $400,000 (donated to animal welfare charities) and Zouma's cats have been taken away (though they could be returned if the RSPCA thinks they are unharmed and able to be looked after).
He also potentially faces (a maximum penalty of) up to four years in jail after the largest animal rights group in France asked that he be dropped from the France team and be prosecuted under French law allowing people to be charged even if they commit acts overseas. In Britain, 110,000 people have signed a petition asking that Zouma be prosecuted.
The video is a despicable thing - but the maltreatment of a cat has seen the Zoumas and Moyes combine some looney tunes decisions in a way that might end Zouma's career or, at the very least, will be the thing for which he is always remembered.
The British are fond of their pets. Watching a huge 27-year-old Frenchman kick a cat across a kitchen floor would have raised temperatures in many houses to boiling point, forever colouring opinion on Zouma.
Like former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez. The Uruguayan was a world-class player but ended up a figure of fun after biting incidents and a nasty racial slur against a Manchester United player. Suarez had an unfortunate set of buck teeth – you wonder why he never got them fixed with all the money Premier League footballers earn – and United fans taunted him with a chant that went: "Luis Suarez, your teeth are offside". Such things are often the mud that sticks, negating a highly successful career and, in Britain anyway, he is not remembered in a way conjoint with his talent, even though he went on to score 147 goals in 191 appearances for Barcelona.
Which brings us to Moyes. What he might have been trying to get across was that he is a manager, of a team high in the Premier League table, and that even though he is "an animal lover" who loves his dogs and horses, his job is to help West Ham win.
But the logic doesn't hold up, does it? Putting Zouma straight back into the team sent the wrong message; it basically pitched his player right into the Court Of Public Opinion. It also told the rest of the team that if they cross a line, they'll still be in the run-on team, earning their gigantic wages, because the manager needs to select the best side. I wonder if Moyes has a scale of dirty deeds – you're out if it's rape and assault, but kicking a cat…?
If you are wearing your manager's hat and big boys' trousers and are concerned about the player's welfare, you shield him from the highly predictable boos that were aimed at him by Watford fans. They will be aimed at him all season now. Zouma is also a man of colour and, in spite of the take-a-knee anti-racism ethic applied before all Premier League games now, fans (and some other players) have not always been kind to coloured players.
Not many have the strength of character to shrug off concerted, consistent insults and disapproval flung from the stands. It has a corrosive effect, not least on form. If Zouma is in Moyes' first XI now, he may not be for long – and where then is West Ham's "best team"?
No, the really pragmatic move was to give the player a rest against lowly Watford – and maybe the week after that – and let the matter slip away on the wake of the next scandal. Instead, Moyes has given it fuel.
It reminds me of the classic comedy Dumb and Dumber and the scene where Lloyd says to Harry: "I bet you $20 I can get you gambling by the end of the day". Harry: "You're on!" The joke was neither realised they'd already fulfilled the bet. If you add Yoan to the picture, it could be dumb and dumber and dumberer…
