After almost three months of no football, the top professional leagues in the world are slowly making a comeback. The English Premier League makes a return next week and football fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief and hopefully make good on their promise to never take Brighton vs Norwich on a Monday night for granted ever again.
That being said, one man who’s going to have to wait an extra week longer to get back on the field is Tottenham’s Dele Alli. The 24 year old midfielder has been suspended for one match by the Football Association over a post on social media about coronavirus.
Alli, in his infinite wisdom posted a video on Snapchat back in February where he joked about the coronavirus outbreak by mocking an Asian man. The dude literally did the “omg there’s an asian person in my vicinity.. i’m going to get the coronavirus” jig, which is not only childish but was never funny to begin with.
On top of his one match ban, the England International was also fined £50,000 and ordered to undertake an education course. To be fair to Alli, he had apparently “very quickly” realised that the video had the “potential to cause upset” and deleted it before catching his flight. At least that’s what he said at his hearing.
As to how the story went viral, the Tottenham midfielder said that he had been “betrayed” by a friend who sold the video on his private account to the media. He also put out a statement saying:
“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.”
At least he feels remorse over his actions. Whatever it is, Tottenham’s loss is Manchester United’s gain. Both teams are still very much in the running for the coveted fourth place in the table, which brings with it the last Champions League spot and a huge cash windfall.
Tottenham are set to host Manchester United on Saturday the 20th of June at 3:15 am (Malaysian time).
