The two forwards of the France team apologized publicly, in turn on Monday, while a video dated 2019 is controversial on social networks.
We see the two footballers mock Japanese technicians during a friendly tour of Japan with FC Barcelona.
It is a private video released a few days after the elimination of France in the round of 16 of Euro 2020 which is controversial. The two French strikers Ousmane Dembélé and Antoine Griezmann apologized in turn on Monday about a short excerpt that has been running in recent days on social networks, calling for an end to racism against Asians. In this video, the two friends make fun of Japanese technicians installing game consoles, during a tour of Japan in 2019. FC Barcelona teammates publicly refute the accusations of racism brought to them.
I have always been committed against any form of discrimination.
For the past few days, some people have wanted to pass me off as the man I am not.
I firmly refute the accusations made against me and I am sorry if I could offend my Japanese friends.
- Antoine Griezmann (@AntoGriezmann) July 5, 2021
On the sidelines of a friendly match
This incident took place on the sidelines of the Rakuten Cup, a friendly pre-season tour played with FC Barcelona in Japan in the summer of 2019. In this video of less than a minute, we can see Antoine Griezmann and hear Ousmane Dembélé's inappropriate comments about the physique and language of hotel employees. "It turns out that the scene takes place in Japan. It could have taken place anywhere on the planet, I would have used the same expressions. So I was not targeting any community", defends the former Rennais.
"I sometimes use these kinds of expressions in private, with friends, regardless of their origin. I can imagine that the video could have offended the people present in these images," argues the 24-year-old attacker. .
"I offer them my sincerest apologies."
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"I have always been committed against any form of discrimination", explains Antoine Griezmann, a few minutes later on social networks.
"For the past few days some people have wanted to pass me off as the man I am not. I firmly refute the accusations leveled at me and I am sorry if I could offend my Japanese friends," adds the star striker. bruises.
The former Atletico de Madrid striker, who denounced at the end of the year the assault of a black police producer by police officers in Paris, had already had to apologize in December 2017 after posting on the networks social a photo of him, disguised as a black player of the Harlem Globetrotters. A tribute for him but a gesture denounced as a "blackface", which refers to a racist practice born at the time of segregation in the United States.