Chelsea and the Enzo Fernandez fallout: Anger, apologies and investigations

Enzo Fernandez is expected to join up with his Chelsea team-mates on the pre-season tour of the U.S. later this month — and only then will the club find out just how well the apology over his behaviour has been received.

New head coach Enzo Maresca has been working at the training ground for only a couple of weeks and is already having to cope with the first significant test of his man-management skills. Welcome to Chelsea, indeed.

As one source close to a senior player speaking anonymously to The Athletic to protect relationships explained, before Fernandez’s live stream, the start of Maresca’s regime could not have gone much better. Members of the squad who were not involved in the international tournaments began reporting for duty on July 4 and the feedback from the Italian’s sessions have been very positive. The mood has been good.

That is until Fernandez live-streamed a video of him and some of his Argentina teammates singing what the French Football Federation (FFF) has labelled a ‘racist and discriminatory song’ following Argentina’s Copa America final win over Colombia on Sunday night. The FFF says it plans to lodge a legal complaint with FIFA and understandably so. The lyrics are offensive, mocking the background of French players and with an element of transphobia for good measure too.

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The clip went viral for all the wrong reasons and anger was not just expressed by the FFF. Fernandez’s actions were viewed by his Chelsea colleagues and the reaction was bad. “Many people were really angry,” one person close to a senior player says. “They were asking, ‘Why would he do that?’

Fernandez celebrating Argentina’s Copa America triumph (Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

“There has always been a strong togetherness in the squad and the club just needed the right coach to make it work. But this incident has changed that. It will be interesting to see what happens when Fernandez goes back to the club.” Another individual familiar with the team environment described the situation as being even more dire, that the camp had initially been “fractured”.

An indication of the upset caused came on Tuesday when Chelsea’s French players unfollowed Fernandez en masse on Instagram. One player, defender Wesley Fofana, then posted a clip of Fernandez’s video on X with the caption ‘Football in 2024: uninhibited racism’. Fofana’s account was then subject to a lot of racist abuse.

Chelsea promised to investigate the incident on Tuesday afternoon, part of which included establishing the video was genuine. Fernandez is on holiday post-Copa America so was not with the club (and therefore could not immediately be spoken to in person) but by late Tuesday night UK time, he issued a statement of contrition. “I want to apologise for a video posted on my Instagram channel during the national team celebrations,” he wrote.

“The song includes highly offensive language and there is absolutely no excuse for these words. I stand against discrimination in all forms and apologise for getting caught up in the euphoria of our…