Tottenham’s Dele Alli Under Fire For Coronavirus Video

The Football Association (FA) has written to Tottenham midfielder, Dele Alli to “seek his observations” on a viral social media post in which he allegedly joked about the deadly China (2019-nCoV) coronavirus.

The 23-year old England international released a snap chat video on Saturday where he joked about the virus outbreak and appeared to mock an Asian man.

The coronavirus has so far recorded over 40,000 infections in over 25 countries and the death toll has hit 900 according to official figures.

Th virus has killed more people than the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pandemic of 2003.
However the Chinese authority reported that a total of 3,281 patients have been discharged from the hospital on Sunday.

Alli however apologized and expressed regret for the Snapchat post in a video on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Sunday.

“Hi guys, it’s Dele; I just wanted to apologise on my behalf for the video I posted on Snapchat yesterday,” he said.

“It wasn’t funny and I realised that immediately and took it down. I let myself down and the club.

“I don’t want you to have that impression of me because it wasn’t funny and I realised that straight away and took it down.

“It isn’t something that should be joked about. I’m sending all my love and all my thoughts and prayers to everyone in China,” he said.

The English FA’s guidelines on media comments and social media posts emphasises it will charge offenders under Rule E3 if it considers that someone has acted in an improper way or undermined the reputation of the game.

The FA considers an action a breach if a “comment or social media post, whether explicitly or implicitly, makes reference to ethnic origin, colour, race, nationality, religion or belief, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation or disability.”