Simon Johnson of the Athletic is embedded with the Chelsea squad on their tour of the USA, meaning he’s getting a lot of information about what’s going on, as soon as it happens.
His update from just 3 minutes ago is all about Enzo Fernandez, who had his first training session of preseason yesterday after arriving in Atlanta from South American where he had taken his holidays after helping Argentina win the Copa America.
This was no ordinary return to the group however. The midfielder filmed himself and his Argentina colleagues signing an offensive song about players of African descent in the France team. The video soon went viral, and had many players including several in the Chelsea dressing room responding.
Wesley Fofana called it “uninhibited racism” in an Instagram story, and now Fernandez’ task is to regain the trust and favour of his colleagues.
According to Johnson, Fernandez today “issued a personal apology” to his teammates, and has told the club he wants to make a “sizeable donation to an anti-discrimination charity,” which will be matched by Chelsea’s charitable foundation.
After his first session back yesterday, Enzo apparently had lunch with all his teammates. Axel Disasi and Reece James are noted to have “helped mediate over the situation.” He had responded in the immediate aftermath of the incident with a social media post, but this face to face situation is of course a whole different kettle of fish entirely.
We’re sure this is just the start of the PR war, both from the perspective of Fernandez and the club. We expect more than just a donation, there will likely be efforts made across multiple platforms to dry and deal with this issue – and then move on.
