The Tottenham Way: Damage your brand for no gain whatsoever
With no outside interference whatsoever, Spurs have made a racist mountain out of a racist molehill over the Rodrigo Bentancur affair.
There are ways to deal things, and there are ways to not deal with things. And then there is The Tottenham Hotspur Way, which is to actually create the entire thing yourself to such an extent that there are no outside parties who could in any way whatsoever be blamed, and then trip over your own clown shoes by making a feeble claim that the punishment passed down over what happened might have been a bit harsh.
Now, this could be the echo chamber effect coming into play, but in all honesty I’ve not seen much criticism from Spurs fans over the decisions that were reached in the matter of Rodrigo Bentancur. During an interview with journalist Rafa Cotelo in the Uruguayan TV show Por la Camiseta, Bentancur had said South Korea international, team-mate and club captain Son Heung Min and his cousins “all look the same”, which is pretty much an open and shut case when we’re talking aboout racism.
There was little doubt that Bentancur was going to find himself on the receiving end of a ban. The comment was pretty clear. As it came on a television show, there could be little questioning that he said it. We even had a pretty decent idea of how long this ban would last. Six games is the standard for such an offence, increasing up to twelve depending on how egregious the particular case might be. In this scenario, a seven game ban is arguably at the lower end of the scale that we might have expected.
Were this a sensible football club, somebody might have realised that this was a matter of damage limitation, accepted the penalty and moved on. Tottenham Hotspur, however, are not a sensible football club so have taken the retrogressive and frankly somewhat stupid decision to try and get the ban reduced.
Now, it is clear that six games is the minimum that was ever going to be given in this case. And’s what the cost of this? Well, firstly and foremostly, they’ve added an extra level of drama over what realistically is only likely to be at best a one game reduction in the length of the player’s protection. Some have argued that even a one game reduction is worthwhile because the last game of his seven-game ban is against Liverpool. Others might counter that to make such a claim is to give the current senior management more skulduggery credit than they deserve.
Others have looked at the the video of Argentina players singing a racist song, broadcast by Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez, but the fact that he has never been punished over this that because it happened during the Copa America any punishment can only fall under the jurisdiction of the South Amercian confederation CONMEBOL or FIFA themselves. Again, it’s completely irrelevant.
Then there’s the small matter of the potential PR cost. Spurs are hugely popular in South Korea, where it’s been estimated that they’re supported by up to a quarter the 52m population of the entire country. To be doing something which might easily be interpreted as playing down anti-Asian racism to get a player’s suspension reduced is unlikely to earn them any new fans in that part of the world. None of this takes into account the captain, who may well having been forgiven had he taken exception at the club dealing with this situation in the way that they have. That he doesn't seem to have done says more about his forebearance than the club's competence.
And then, of course, they need to look a little closer to home. London N17 is a multi-racial area. What does it say for the club that it follow such a path when the locality of the ground itself has so many non-whites living nearby? Perhaps it’s difficult to see all this from the smoked glass windows of a gold helicopter, or whatever the hell it is that Daniel Levy uses to access his Fortress of Solitude, deep within the bowels of The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
It is true to say that players from other clubs have received lower bans, but to try and claim this as a magic bullet for Bentancur’s suspension betrays a lack of understanding on the part of the club. Yes, it is true to say that in 2020, Edinson Cavani got a three-game ban for a comment made on Instagram. And yes, it is also true to say that in 2019, Bernardo Silva got a one-game ban for a comment on Twitter.
But the FA has a different standard for comments which are both made “in writing only or via the use of any communication device.” The minimum ban in writing only is three games, but the fact that Bentancur said what he said on the television extends that ban to six games. Unless they’re prepared to overlook their own guidelines, the fact that it occurred on the television makes a six-game ban correct as per the rules and guidelines. At the time that it became public, even head coach Ange Postecoglou knowledged that the player would have to “take the punishment”. Anyone else important within the club they’d like to make look slightly foolish? Perhaps they should get Steve Perryman out on the pitch before their next match dressed as a clown or something.
What makes this case so unique is that it's so entirely self-inflicted. There is no other party that can be blamed here. Spurs have kept their racism completely in-house, including the person on the receiving end of it, who just also happens to be their captain and most popular player of the last decade or so. It takes a special dedication to Sideshow Bob-ism to manage this with no outside interference whatsoever, and still more to kick what should really have been a highly embarrassing episode for the entire club into such a harsh spotlight by choosing to appeal the matter.
Coming on top of the Save our Seniors campaign, which has been running since the summer as a protest against the club's decision to remove and phase out concessionary prices from over-65s, the club seems to be on some sort of mission to alienate just about everybody at the moment. If this really is The Tottenham Way, few would be surprised if many chose to look in the other direction. The club should obviously have just accepted the punishment for all of this. To have done otherwise says a lot about the values of those running it, none of it complimentary.