Tottenham star Dele Alli has been suspended for a match and received a fine of 50,000 pounds ($63,000) for a video about the coronavirus that the English Football Association (EFA) said depicted an "unacceptable racist stereotype". The video in question was posted on 6 February, when the Spurs midfielder was at Heathrow Airport getting ready for a flight with his friends during a break in the football season. The footballer recorded himself wearing a mask and then zoomed in on an Asian man sitting behind him. The footage also featured a caption "Corona whattttt, please listen with volume".
The video sparked anger, with many saying that the athlete was mocking Asian people. Alli, whose father is Nigerian, issued an apology and denied that the video was offensive or racist. The athlete claimed that the man in the video was coughing and that this was the reason why he posted the caption "please listen with volume".
However, the Regulatory Commission of the EFA said there was no sound of coughing and that Alli’s decision to film the man was "consistent with racial stereotyping of persons of Asian appearance being connected with coronavirus".
At the same time, the Regulatory Commission noted that it did not consider the footballer to be a racist, something that Alli said he was grateful for in the apology that he posted on Twitter.