The FA suspended Rodrigo Bentancur for seven games for racially abusing teammate Heung-Min Son. Tottenham is now appealing against the drastic punishment.
In the summer, Rodrigo Bentancur racially insulted his teammate Heung-Min Son in a TV interview in Uruguay. When asked about a Tottenham shirt, he replied to the presenter: “Sonnys? It could also be Sonny’s cousin, they all look the same.”
While the South Korean has had “no problem” with the six for quite some time, the FA only announced the punishment last Monday. The association handed Bentancur a seven-match ban and a fine of 100,000 pounds (about 120,000 euros). The FA justified the drastic punishment, among other things, with a violation of rule E3.1, “because he behaved in an improper manner and/or used offensive and/or insulting words and/or brought the game into disrepute.”
Whether the 27-year-old will actually have to watch seven games has been in question since Wednesday. Because Tottenham is appealing the penalty. “We can confirm that the club has appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur’s FA ban issued earlier this week,” the club said in a statement.
The club accepts the “guilty verdict”, but the “subsequent sanction” is too “harsh”. The club’s management is likely to hope that the suspension can be reduced by one game. After all, the standard minimum suspension for such an offense is “only” six games.
Tottenham will not comment further until the end of the proceedings
Should Spurs be successful with the appeal and the FA actually reduce the ban by one game, the midfielder could return on December 22 in the home game against Liverpool, instead of four days later in the game in Nottingham.
Tottenham will not comment further on this matter until the FA’s final decision. “Rodrigo remains suspended from the domestic competitions for the duration of the appeal process and the club will make no further comment during this time,” the final paragraph of the statement read.
