The French striker has been suspended six matches, including one suspended, after his spitting on an opponent.
He had been controversial on Saturday. By spitting on an opponent in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. And the sanction did not take long to fall. French international striker Marcus Thuram has been suspended for six matches, including five closed, on Monday for spitting on an opponent, the German Football Association (DFB) said in a statement on Monday.
Heavy fine
The player spat on an opponent during a match with his club Borussia Mönchengladbach against TSG Hoffenheim (1-2) on Saturday. He will have to pay “a fine of 40,000 euros”, continued the federation. It will come in addition to the fine of 150,000 euros already imposed by his club. After this inappropriate gesture, and too often seen in football, Lilian Thuram’s son apologized. Too late. The heavy sanction has fallen.
The suspensions will apply for matches “of the German Cup and the Bundesliga”, explained the DFB in a statement. The images of the scene had been captured by the video arbitration, and had looped on the German media, causing a vast controversy in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, while the players must respect a strict health protocol.
A slip that goes wrong
“I reacted in the wrong way”, admitted shortly after the player in a message posted on social networks Instagram and Twitter, evoking an “accidental” and “unintentional” gesture. “I believe in what he tells me because he has had so far an irreproachable behavior”, reacted his sports director, Max Eberl. His apologies did not appease sports commentators in Germany where the Frenchman’s slippage went very badly.
“What Thuram is doing is disgusting and scandalous,” former German international Dietmar Hamann told the channel. Sky Sport. These suspensions fall badly for the club of Mönchengladbach, in decline of form in recent weeks, despite a recent qualification in the round of 16 of the Champions League. The club relies on the fulgurances of its duo of French strikers Alassane Pléa-Thuram to cling to European places.
No shock against Bayern Munich
M’Gladbach is currently in a disappointing 8th place in the league. The French international with three selections will miss the shock against Bayern Munich on January 8. The last fine comparable to Mönchengladbach, internally, was imposed in 2010 on a player who had insulted a referee. In 2019, Argentinian Santiago Ascacibar, then in Stuttgart, was also sentenced to six suspension matches for spitting on Kai Havertz, in a period when the Covid-19 was not yet relevant.
