Tottenham’s Dele Alli has been given a one-match suspension and fined £50,000 for an offensive social media post, the Football Association has announced.
Alli posted a video on Snapchat in early February, before the pandemic took hold in the UK, making fun of an Asian man in an airport before promptly deleting the post and apologising.
He will miss Tottenham’s game at home to Manchester United a week on Friday and must also attend a face-to-face education course.
An FA statement said: “The Tottenham Hotspur FC player denied that a social media post breached FA Rule E3(1), as it was insulting and/or improper and/or brought the game into disrepute, and constituted an ‘Aggravated Breach’, which is defined in FA Rule E3(2), as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to race and/or colour and/or ethnic origin and/or nationality. However, it was subsequently found proven by an independent Regulatory Commission.”
Alli posted a video on Snapchat which showed him wearing a face mask in an airport departure lounge and had the title: “Corona whattt, please listen with volume.” The video then cut to an unsuspecting man of Asian appearance before panning to a bottle of antiseptic hand wash, underneath which appeared the caption: “This virus gunna have to be quicker than that to catch me.”
Alli said on Thursday: “In response to the FA decision, I would like to apologise again for any offence caused by my behaviour. It was an extremely poorly judged joke about a virus that has now affected us more than we could ever have imagined. I’m grateful that the FA has confirmed that my actions were not racist because I despise racism of any kind. We all need to be mindful of the words and actions we use and how they can be perceived by others.”