Tottenham midfielder, Rodrigo Bentancur is facing disciplinary action from the Football Association (FA) after making derogatory comments about South Koreans on television. The FA has charged Bentancur for saying that all South Korean people 'look the same', which has been deemed offensive and discriminatory
On Social media, a clip was posted from a June interview conducted in Spanish on Uruguayan Television programme "Por La Camiseta," with host Rafa Cotelo asking Bentancur for a Spurs player's shirt, to which he replied, "Sonny's?" [Son Heung-Min], adding: "It could be Sonny's cousin too as they all look the same."
British based anti-discrimination charity, Kick It Out, said it had received a "significant number" of complaints regarding the comment earlier made by Bentancur.
However, a statement was released by the English football's governing body on September 12th, announcing that the 27-year-old midfielder had been "charged with an alleged breach of FA rule E3 for misconduct in relation to a media interview."
To further confirm this alleged charges, the X(formerly twitter) account @FA Spokesperson tweeted the charges around 9:30am on September 12th.
"It's alleged that the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder acted in an improper manner and/or used abusive and/or insulting words and/or brought into disrepute.
It's further alleged that this constitutes an 'aggravated breach' which is defined in FA Rule E3.2. as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to a nationality and/or race and/or ethnic origin."
According to the FA laws, "match-based sanctions of six to 12 games will be recommended to regulatory commissions for almost all acts of discrimination by individual participants."
Prior to the tweet, the Uruguay international, Bentancur, apologised on June 20 in a post on Instagram for the remark that he said it was a "very bad joke." Five days later, Tottenham's captain, Son, who happened to be the victim said that he had accepted his teammate's apology.
"He made a mistake, he knows this and has apologised. Lolo [Bentancur] would not mean to ever intentionally say something offensive. We are brothers and nothing has changed at all," Son said in a post on social media.
"We're past this, we're united, and we will be back together in preseason to fight for our club as one," Son said.
The 27-year-old midfielder has a deadline of September 19th to provide a response to the FA's charge.
Similarly, former Manchester United striker Edinson Cavani was banned for three games and fined £100,000 as penalty in 2020 for using the Spanish term "negrito" (small black person) in a social media post.
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