James Maddison has fit in at Tottenham Hotspur like a hand in a glove, seamlessly adapting himself to a change in environment after spending five years at Leicester City.
Even though he has been injured for the last few months, the Englishman’s early season blitz proved that he’ll be a long-term success for the club.
Maddison has eight goal contributions (three goals, five assists) in 11 Premier League games for the Lilywhites and fired on all cylinders in the early part of the campaign.
Not just that, but he also blended into the Tottenham squad without any issues and has become a popular figure in the dressing room.
Indeed, Maddison has already made a lot of friends with his loveable attitude and gotten teammates to get his ‘dart throw’ celebration too.
But it seems that he can get a bit carried away with his ‘banter’ with his teammates and that was definitely the case with what he recently did on his social media.
Maddison recently posted a small clip from his Instagram account where he is sharing some banter with teammate Pedro Porro.
In the clip, he has seemingly used the ‘monkey filter’ on Porro’s face, basically altering the features of his face to that of a monkey. With that, he also wrote: ‘The Pedro Porro Filter. Makes u look exactly like him’.
Now, this shocked a lot of people because even though he might not have totally meant it, but the post comes off as racist.
By trying to indicate that Porro looks like a ‘monkey’ because of his facial features, Maddison has gotten himself in hot water.
Maddison was quick to delete the post after being made aware of how offensive it might come off to some people and it’s clear that he doesn’t really have a social media team doing these posts or Instagram story updates.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the Englishman has any racial issues with any teammate and in fact looks like he was just having some fun with Porro.
However, Maddison could possibly get in a lot of trouble if the FA (Football Association) decide to have a closer look at it. The FA has been quite stringent with punishing players for making any offensive posts on social media.
In 2020, the-then Manchester United forward Edinson Cavani was handed a three-game ban by the FA for writing ‘gracias negrito’ in a comment on social media – which they felt was racial even though the Uruguayan meant no harm at all.
A year before that, Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva was even given a one-match ban for posting a childhood picture of Ferland Mendy alongside the mascot of Spanish confectionary brand ‘Conguitos’ – which was that of a black kid too.
In fact, Manchester United winger Alejandro Garnacho came close to facing a ban after he posted a picture of Andre Onana on his Twitter with a gorilla emoji.
Onana had to himself later insists that Garnacho meant it as a sign of respect and the winge was then let off by the FA.
It now remains to be seen if the federation decides to take any action on an England national team member for making this controversial post.
What Maddison has to learn from the incident is that he should probably hire some PR personnel to help review the kind of things he posts on social media going forward.
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