Dele Alli has apologised after he filmed himself appearing to make an offensive joke about coronavirus while filming an Asian man at Heathrow Airport.
The £100,000-a-week Spurs star, 23, sent the offensive clip to a group of friends on his Snapchat account.
It was shot on Thursday in a lounge at Heathrow as he waited with pals to board a flight to Dubai.
Tonight the Tottenham attacker offered his “sincerest apologies” and said it was “never my intention” to offend anyone.
In the video, seen by the Daily Star Sunday, Dele films himself wearing a face mask.
A caption he posted on the video says: “Corona whatttttt, please listen with volume.” A group of what are thought to be Chinese accents can be heard in the background as he moves his eyes from side to side.
Dele turns the camera around and starts to film a man of Asian appearance waiting in the lounge. He then zooms in on the man, who is on his phone and doesn’t realise he is being filmed.
Dele then pans to a bottle of antiseptic handwash which is on the table in front of him. He captioned it: “This virus gunna have to be quicker than that to catch me.”
The video sparked outrage. A source said: “It is wholly inappropriate to be filming this man and making jokes about the coronavirus. People are dying all over the world and this sort of racism will just fan the flames.”
Many Asian people have reported a rise in racist remarks and attitudes against them since the virus first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
This week a Chinese student in Sheffield was reportedly pushed and abused for wearing a face mask.
South Yorkshire Police said it was “liaising with both universities and representatives from the Chinese community in the city to offer reassurance and establish further details”.
More than 720 people have died from coronavirus and almost 35,000 cases have been diagnosed since the outbreak was first spotted last month.