Bentancur, the FA, and inconsistency between the spoken and written slur.
There is an inconsistency at the heart of Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven-game domestic ban for a racial slur about Heung-Min Son, his Tottenham Hotspur team-mate. Bentancur deserved to be punished, his comment was offensive and discriminatory, but the ban would have been less if he’d crafted the same insult himself, posted it on his own social media feed, than replying to an interviewer who then broadcast it.
FA guidelines on bans are stricter for the spoken word than the written. Why? Words are words, whether written or spoken. Many people will have learned about Bentancur’s comment by reading it when the content was posted by the interviewer on social media.