Sometimes it’s genuinely bewildering to see the actions of certain famous people, because it’s just unfathomable how they thought it wasn’t going to cause issues.
Barcelona duo Ousmane Dembele and Antoine Griezmann find themselves in that situation just now, after footage emerged of them mocking some Asian staff who had come to help them.
It looks like the clip is a couple of years old but that hasn’t stopped consequences catching up with them, and it’s pretty understandable that some sponsors and fans from Asia are really quite unhappy about it.
Barcelona pride themselves on being a global club and Asia is a huge and lucrative market for them, and they’ve now been forced to come out with a statement due to sponsors starting to kick off.
The official statement contains most of the standard language that you would expect about not standing for any racism or discrimination, but this is the most notable line:
“The players have already shown their regret and have apologised to Japanese fans and partners, something that the Club values. Nevertheless, FC Barcelona reserve the right to take the internal measures that it considers appropriate.”
It won’t be lost on anyone that these are two high-earning players who haven’t delivered value for money and Barcelona need to save some money, so it will be interesting to see how seriously they want to punish them.