The Football Association have published their reasons for Edinson Cavani’s suspension, suggesting they were ‘surprised’ Manchester United had not given him any social media training.
Cavani was charged over the use of the word ‘negrito’ in an Instagram post, made after scoring two goals for United in a 3-2 win over Southampton in November. He was addressing his friend Mr Pablo Fernandez and later deleted the post.
In a detailed document about Cavani’s charge, the FA have now outlined the reason for the ban.
They cited Cavani’s breach of FA Rule E3, which says a player should “act in the best interests of the game and shall not act in any manner which is improper or brings the game into disrepute or use any one, or any combination of, violent conduct, serious foul play, abusive, indecent or insulting words or behaviour.”
The FA also questioned why the Red devils had not given the player more social media guidance.
They said: “Having signed for Manchester United in early October 2020, the player had received no media training specific to his residence in this country [sic] to enable him to be better placed to understand the cultural differences that might give rise to issues with a foreign player posting information on a social media platform.
“In light of the player’s high profile in the game, his inability to speak English and the fact that he had approaching 8 million Instagram followers, the Commission were surprised that no such ‘training’ had been specifically put in place for the player by his club.”
Manchester United’s current good form was punctured by a 2-0 Carabao Cup semi-final defeat to Guardiola’s Man City.
Goals from John Stones and Fernandinho secured a deserved win for City as United laboured at Old Trafford, losing a fourth semi-final under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
United will now focus on the Premier League, though more immediately they have a FA Cup game against Watford to look forward to on Saturday.
The Commission concluded that “taking all relevant matters into account, a suspension from playing of 3 games — rather than the standard minimum of six games for the offence — properly marked the gravity of the player’s offending.”
In addition to this, the Commission concluded that it was correct to impose a financial penalty (£100,000) on the United player.
