Edinson Cavani intended no offence in Instagram post, FA Commission finds

The commission's findings were released on Thursday

Edinson Cavani meant no offence in the social media post to a friend which resulted in the Football Association fining him £100,000 and banning him for three matches. Cavani was handed the ban and fine for a post on Instagram sent to Pablo Fernandez after Manchester United's 3-2 victory over Southampton at St. Mary's on November 29th. He has already served two of the three matches, with the final game of the suspension to be United's FA Cup third round tie against Watford on Saturday. Both Cavani and his club asserted that the words he used were in an affectionate manner. This, combined with evidence of WhatsApp messages between Cavani and Fernandez which saw the term featured regularly, led the FA's Regulatory Commission to accept the striker's position. The FA also acknowledged that Cavani deleted his post once made aware of the fact that it could be deemed offensive. Nevertheless, the decision to hand him a three-match ban was taken due to the commission's submission "that a follower of English Premier League football would have understandably concluded that the words used were racially offensive". The commission stated that Cavani's apparent ignorance regarding the words he used, his instant deletion of the post and what they considered to be "no genuine intent on the part of the Participant Charged to be discriminatory or offensive in any way" meant the player could be handed a ban which was an exception to the minimum standard of six games.