5 footballers who were found guilty of racism

#3 Jonjo Shelvey

Jonjo Shelvey claims mocking of his childhood alopecia caused his outburst

In September 2016, Newcastle United played Wolverhampton Wanderers, a game that was fairly nondescript saved for an incident involving Newcastle’s Jonjo Shelvey and Wolves’ Romain Saiss.

It had been alleged that Shelvey reacted to a comment about his bald head, caused by childhood alopecia, by calling Saiss a “dirty Arab c**t.” After a thorough investigation, the Newcastle man was banned for five games, fined £100,000 and sent on an education course, a decision which he accepted and didn’t appeal.

Though Shelvey did admit to telling Saiss that he had ‘smelly breath,’ he denied that there were any racist undertones to his comments, despite ‘compelling evidence’ provided from three Wolves players (Dominic Iorfa, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Matt Doherty) who were in the vicinity.