Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli will find out this week if he will miss the restart of the Premier League after being hit in February with an FA charge for misconduct.
The appeal of the 24-year-old will eventually be heard on Wednesday or Thursday by an independent three-person commission.
Alli was charged with discrimination and bringing the game into disrepute after posting a video on his Snapchat account in which he appeared to mock a man of Asian appearance and the coronavirus outbreak, which was then largely confined to Asia.
If suspended, Alli will miss the first match back for Tottenham, on Friday’s critical visit of the Champions League rivals Manchester United a week.
Spurs then face a London derby at home to West Ham on June 23, ahead of another potentially decisive six-pointer at the start of July against Sheffield United.
There are no set sanctions for misuse of social media, but last November, in a not-dissimilar case, Bernardo Silva from Manchester City was banned for one match and fined £50,000 after an FA commission found that he had unquestionably discredited the game with a tweet about Benjamin Mendy’s teammate.
If found guilty Alli will have to complete a compulsory course of education.
Alli, who quickly deleted and apologized for the video, is set to tell the commission that it was a misguided joke and point out that the video was not shared in a public forum, leaked from a closed Snapchat group to a national newspaper.
Spurs are also waiting to discover the outcome of Eric Dier’s FA charge of improper and or threatening behavior after he climbed to the stands to face a supporter after Norwich ‘s March FA Cup defeat.
The Met opened an inquiry into the case but did not determine any wrongdoing by anyone involved.
