Former Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli has issued a public apology to French forward, Ousmane Dembele.
This was after the Argentine made a derogatory remark about the Paris Saint-Germain star.
The former manager’s comments came a few days after France’s 2-1 UEFA Euro 2024 semi-final loss to Spain.
Didier Deschamps’ men scored just four goals during regulation time throughout the tournament with two of them being own goals.
Dembele assisted once in five games, being France’s 1-1 group-stage draw against Poland.
He was also their Player of the Match in the 0-0 (5-3 on pens) quarter-final win against Portugal.
Sampaoli had recently told French outlet SoFoot (via @CentreGoals on X), that “Dembele plays like an autistic. He starts the action and finishes it alone.
“He doesn’t have the ability to make a team-mate shine, he only knows how to shine himself.”
Tendering a public apology for the comment, the 64-year-old took to his Instagram account and posted a story, a part of which read (via GOAL), ”
“It was never my intention to refer to autism. I apologize to everyone. I wanted to talk about individuality.
“More than ever, you need to be careful with the words used.”
Ex-Argentina boss apologises to Dembele over ‘autistic’ comment