Alli's coronavirus apology showed 'remarkable humility', says Mourinho

Jose Mourinho has praised Dele Alli for showing "remarkable humility" in apologising for a social media post about coronavirus.

Alli said he "let himself and the club down" after posting a video on Snapchat in which he appeared to mock an Asian man while joking about the virus outbreak, which as of Friday had killed 1,381 people in China.

The 23-year-old deleted the post and released an apology on Chinese social media platform Weibo, but the Football Association have written to Alli to ask for his observations regarding the initial post.

"Of course I spoke with him about that," Tottenham head coach Mourinho said. "But for me it was quite an easy conversation because he was very sorry about, let's say, the mistake.

"I feel that [a ban] would be unnecessary, but in relation to these decisions, I am nobody,"

"But it was never his intention to hurt, it was not his intention to offend. He immediately regretted it, he immediately recognised.

"It was a young guy's mistake, and he apologised, so my conversation was easy because it was not the conversation of a contradiction of ideas... it was so simple."

"I have a son and a daughter basically at the same age as Dele and many of my players," Mourinho said. "I know what social media is for this generation, but when you are a public person like football players are, they have to know and they have to be very, very careful.

"Dele is a great guy, the last thing that Dele is, is anything connected with racism or disrespect.

"I'm not the FA, I'm just his manager, I am his friend... I have to act as an educator and I think the best way to do it, is immediately his reaction - regret and apologise."

"It's still too early to talk about pre-season fixtures. All I can say is our solidarity with everyone, with everyone fearing the situation - especially with China, but all over the world. Our solidarity is with people with problems to the Coronavirus, especially to the ones that died and the families that are suffering. 

"Solidarity is easy for us to say - of course we have our connection with Asia is obvious. Our connection with the Asian fans is obvious so we care about it. Are we thinking about going to Asia in the next pre-season? Yes we are, but of course we need guarantees of safety for our people. 

"But in this moment we are not thinking about that, we are thinking about the ones there and the ones that are living the problem."