November 19 – The severity of the seven-game ban meted out to Tottenham Hotspur’s Uruguayan midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur has prompted widespread dismay and bewilderment across the English game with authorities accused of inconsistency verging on victimisation.
Bentancur was banned for using a racial slur about Spurs team-mate Son Heung-min, fined £100,000 and ordered to take part in a mandatory education programme, unable to play for his club again (except in Europe) until Boxing Day.
The incident – in which Bentancur said Son was indistinguishable in looks from other South Koreans – occurred thousands of miles away during a television appearance in Bentancur’s native Uruguay in June, with the FA formally charging the player in September.
The midfielder was being interviewed when a Uruguayan journalist asked: “Well, what about the Korean’s shirt?”
After questioning whether the journalist was asking about ‘Sonny’, Bentancur then added: “Or one of Sonny’s cousins as they all look more or less the same.”
Despite offering a swift apology, Bentancur’s case, classified as an “aggravated breach”, required review by an independent regulatory commission panel. The panel upheld the FA’s charge even though Son, tellingly one of Bentancur’s closest colleagues at Tottenham, backed his teammate to the hilt by accepting that the Uruguayan’s comments were simply a bad joke.
Indeed, Son had been keen to speak up in Bentancur’s defence. “Lolo (Rodrigo) would not mean to ever intentionally say something offensive. We are brothers and nothing has changed at all,” he said. “When we came back for pre-season, he felt sorry and he almost cried when he apologised publicly and personally as well. He felt like he was really sorry.”
Whether the punishment fits the crime is now the subject of heated debate, with Bentancur effectively sanctioned on a technicality given there have been other equally if not worse cases where the perpetrators have got off Scot free.
The panel found that although Bentancur had shown “genuine remorse”, but that he should have “foreseen substantial publicity” in making the joke.
But there is a strong belief that Tottenham and the player have been made an example of and that his apology, together with the backing of Son, has been conveniently ignored.
Tottenham have the right to appeal the verdict but have not commented on the ban. Yet was the FA out of order to start with, or at the very least way over the top with the penalty?
In comparison, Chelsea’s Enzo Fernández escaped an FA investigation over discriminatory comments made while on international duty last summer.
Fernandez, who has captained Chelsea since his incident, was filmed chanting racist and homophobic slurs about the French team while on international duty with Argentina.
Fernández’s conduct while celebrating winning the Copa America was outside the FA’s jurisdiction because he was with Argentina at the time and therefore fell under FIFA’s domain.
And how about Spain and Manchester City’s Rodri who, along with Alvaro Morata, was banned for one match by UEFA for chanting ‘Gibraltar is Spanish’ during celebrations in Madrid after their victory against England in the Euro 2024 final. Again, outside FA jurisdiction according to the letter of the law.
Even when the Premier League WAS involved, Edinson Cavani was banned for just three games in 2021 over a social media post in which he used the term “negrito” after a game while representing Manchester United. If that doesn’t put Bencantur’s case into perspective, nothing does.
Bentancur, the FA’s spurious argument goes, hadn’t officially been released for international duty so was still under their remit even though no English match was involved, he wasn’t even in the country and his comments were made on Uruguayan tv.
The whole thing is utterly absurd.
Former Crystal Palace supremo Simon Jordan, now a respected media pundit, blasted the current loophole when he told Talksport Radio: “You’ve got an inconsistency about the manner in which you approach these things because the FA couldn’t sanction Fernandez.
“He’s playing in the FA’s Premier League, but because he was playing out of their jurisdiction … he was under the jurisdiction of another governance. Fernandez said something equally as challenging at Chelsea but he gets away with it because of jurisdiction rules.”
And there’s the rub. If only a little common sense had prevailed instead of such ridiculous heavy-handed politically correct inflexibility.
