Tottenham have appealed the length of Rodrigo Bentancur’s ban after the midfielder was charged by the Football Association for his racist remark against Spurs captain Heung-min Son.
Bentancur has been given a seven-match ban and fined £100,000 after being found guilty of an aggravated breach of the FA’s misconduct rules for ‘abusive and/or insulting’ words relating ‘to nationality and/or race and/or ethnic origin’.
During an interview with Uruguayan TV reporter Rafa Coteo in June, Bentancur was asked for the “Korean’s shirt” during a four-hour filming session at his home.
The Spurs midfielder replied: “Sonny? Or one of Sonny’s cousins as they all look more or less the same.”
Bentancur’s case was heard by an independent three-person panel on November 5 and he was hit with a seven-match ban and fined £100,000.
He is set to miss Tottenham’s Premier League games against Manchester City, Fulham, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Southampton and Liverpool, and the visit of Manchester United in the Carabao Cup, and must complete a face-to-face education programme by March 11.
The FA recommends a six to 12-match sanction for players found guilty of an aggravated breach of misconduct rules.
Tottenham are not appealing the guilty verdict handed out to Bentancur - but they are aiming to reduce the length of his ban.
A club statement read: “We can confirm that the Club has appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur’s FA suspension, issued earlier this week.
“While we accept the guilty finding against Rodrigo by the independent regulatory commission, we believe the subsequent sanction is severe.
“Rodrigo will remain suspended from domestic competitions while the appeal is heard and the Club will make no further comment during this time. “
The context of the exchange clearly shows Rodrigo is being sarcastic. It was Mr Cotelo who described Sonny as ‘The Korean’.
Given the minimum sanction for such a charge is a six-game ban, it is unlikely Bentancur’s ban would be reduced below that.
If it was reduced from seven to six matches, though, the midfielder would be able to face Liverpool on December 22.
In a written submission in his defence on behalf of the player, Tottenham claimed: “Rodrigo’s reply was sarcastic and a gentle rebuke for the journalist calling Sonny ‘The Korean’. Rodrigo does not believe that all Koreans ‘look more or less the same’.
“The context of the exchange clearly shows Rodrigo is being sarcastic. It was Mr Cotelo who described Sonny as ‘The Korean’. In the context of the conversation, it was obvious that Mr Cotelo was referring to Sonny as ‘The Korean’, and Rodrigo was challenging the journalist in his description of his Club team-mate.”
The club also described his comment as a “jocular generalisation...which did not cross the line into misconduct”.
Bentancur apologised to Son via social media the day after the video was published, before posting “a longer apology” online the following week.
The panel was unimpressed with Bentancur’s claim about the true meaning of his apologies, saying his explanation “flies in the face of the evidence” and also dismissed his entitlement to privacy.
“If the Player had wanted specifically to exclude something he had said in the interview from being published, he could have said so to Mr Cotelo: there is no evidence that he sought to do so,” the commission’s final report read.
