By Emmanuel Adigwe
Dele Alli has been slammed with a one-game ban by the Football Association for his controversial social media post which he appeared to mock an Asian man over the coronavirus.
It will be reported that the England midfielder has been under investigation and will miss the restart of the league with his team against Manchester United.
He will also pay £50,000 fine and undertake an FA educational course.
It will be recalled that the Tottenham star posted a video showing a man of Asian descent with the caption: “Corona whatttttt, please listen with volume” and in the next part of the Snapchat story, the midfielder was wearing a mask while appearing to feign concern and then, shows a bottle of hand wash, accompanied by the caption: “This virus gunna have to be quicker than that to catch me”.
Although, he deleted the video within minutes of posting it and apologised twice, but the FA have already stated their verdict; the footage has racial connotations.
Alli said: “In response to the FA decision, I would like to apologise again for any offence caused by my actions on 6th February.
“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.”
The FA commission wrote: “The creation and distribution of the offending material was more the product of spontaneous ill-judged stupidity rather than any sense of malicious intent.”