Tottenham release Rodrigo Bentancur ban statement explaining reason behind appeal

Tottenham have explained the reason why they are appealing the seven-match ban handed out to Rodrigo Bentancur.

An independent regulatory commission gave Bentancur a seven-game suspension, a £100,000 fine, and ordered him to attend a mandatory face-to-face education programme for comments during an interview which contained a racial slur regarding Spurs captain Son Heung-min.

Now Tottenham have appealed the sanctions but not the verdict and in a statement explained their reasoning.

"We can confirm that the club has appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur's FA suspension, issued earlier this week," it read.

"While we accept the guilty finding against Rodrigo by the independent regulatory commission, we believe the subsequent sanction is severe.

"Rodrigo will remain suspended from domestic competitions while the appeal is heard and the club will make no further comment during this time."

Bentancur denied the FA charge against him and claimed that his response to the journalist had been a sarcastic one and was meant to gently chide him for calling Son 'the Korean'. The commission believed that the Uruguayan's two public apologies, private apology to Son, his captain's own Instagram post speaking about Bentancur knowing he'd made a mistake and the club's comment on the situation suggested that the midfielder knew he had said something wrong.

Currently Bentancur will miss six Premier League games and the Carabao Cup quarter-final with Manchester United, before being able to return to action on Boxing Day. He will be able to play in Tottenham's Europa League matches as it is a domestic ban.

It is the length of the ban that Tottenham will appeal, although with the minimum threshold being six games, it is unlikely that they could get more than one match taken off of it. If that was to be done successfully then Bentancur would be able to face Liverpool on December 22 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

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