Argentina players have been shown on video appearing to take part in a racist chant about members of the French national team, including Kylian Mbappe.
Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez, who has some French teammates at Stamford Bridge, is one of the players taking part in the song as the national side celebrate their Copa America triumph on the team bus.
See below as Fernandez and co. chant together, with the apparent racist chant sounding like it’s starting up towards the end of the clip, with some of the lyrics heard before someone shouts to stop the filming, which is where the video cuts out…
Here is Enzo Fernandez and Argentina players celebrating that Copa America win by singing that racist France chant from the 2022 World Cup pic.twitter.com/pxoaX2MApE
— GC (@ValverdeSZN) July 15, 2024
The full lyrics to the song can be seen below, with the chant previously coming up and mocking Mbappe’s alleged affair with transgender model Ines Rau, as well as making light of the racist trope that some of the French national team’s star players aren’t really French…
The full lyrics to the song are: “Listen, spread the word, they play in France, but they are all from Angola, they are going to run well, they like to sleep with trans people, their mum is Nigerian, their dad is Cameroonian, but on the passport it says: French.”
This could be a very serious issue if these players are found to have taken part in racist chanting, and it could be particularly awkward for Fernandez due to him having a number of French teammates at Chelsea who might be justified in finding it highly offensive that he’s questioning their nationality.
This was originally a fan chant and it’s really not the kind of thing players should be endorsing, so one has to hope it’s not as it seems in this video, or that a full and frank apology will be coming.