Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur has been banned for seven matches and fined £100,000 by the Football Association (FA) for comments he made about teammate Son Heung-min.
Bentancur said on the tv program Por La Camiseta, which aired in his native Uruguay in June, that South Korea international Son and his cousins ”all look the same.” The 27-year-old later apologized on social media.
Bentancur was charged by the FA in September and was accused of “acting inappropriately and/or using offensive and/or insulting words and/or bringing the game into disrepute”. The FA added in a press release that the charge also constituted a “serious breach” of FA Rule E3.2 because it allegedly included references to nationality, racial or ethnic origin.
Son asked during a press conference later in September about his response to the costs and his relationship with Bentancur.
“The process is with the FA and so I can't say much about it, but I love Rodrigo,” Son said. “I repeat: I love him, I love him.
“We had a lot of good memories, we started playing together when he joined. He apologized right after, you know, when we were on vacation.
“I was at home and I didn’t even know what was going on. He just sent me a long text message that you could tell came from his heart. When he returned to the training ground for pre-season training, he was truly sorry and almost cried as he apologized publicly and personally. It felt like he was really sorry.”
Bentancur denied the FA charge, but an independent regulatory commission found him guilty and decided on punishment after a hearing.
The Uruguay international will miss Tottenham's upcoming Premier League games against Manchester City, Fulham, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Southampton and Liverpool, as well as the Carabao Cup quarter-final game against Manchester United in December. He will still be available to them in the Europa League.
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