Just three days after signing for us, we might be without Dion Charles for a few games.
Not the first person, and he won’t be the last person to fall victim to such a fate, but historic racist and homophobic tweets were found from his account. He has since apologised for those, while the club have also issued a statement.
A recent precedent set by the FA was in the case of Jonson Clarke-Harris, back in September he has handed a four-match ban, a fine, and forced to attend an education programme for similar offences. To change sports completely, cricketer Ollie Robinson was banned for three England matches, with a further five suspended, earlier this summer.
It does seem punishing a player now, for something he did before he even became an adult, and played a professional football match, smacks of doing something because something must be done. You would assume, and hope, he has grown up since then, possibly more so than those Wigan fans who have today become so hot on social justice. The club needs to talk to him about the issue, and that he gets the seriousness of it, but as long as he still doesn’t think those views are acceptable, then we move on.
But it is hard to see him not serving a suspension of some sort, given that is standard for those sorts of offences.