Yves Bissouma: Tottenham suspend midfielder for Premier League opener at Leicester over laughing gas incident
Updated 15/08/2024 at 21:14 GMT+1
Yves Bissouma will not be available for selection for Tottenham's opening Premier League match at newly-promoted Leicester City after the club suspended him for one match. Earlier this week, the midfielder apologised after footage emerged on social media of him appearing to inhale laughing gas. Speaking on Thursday, Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou said: "We've suspended him from Monday's game."
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Tottenham midfielder Yves Bissouma has been suspended by the club for one match after footage emerged of him on social media appearing to inhale laughing gas.
The 27-year-old posted a video of himself inhaling from a balloon on Saturday but he later apologised for his actions and said it was "a severe lack of judgement".
After being made aware of the video, Spurs confirmed that there would be an internal investigation into the matter and speaking in his Thursday news conference, manager Ange Postecoglou said Bissouma was suspended for their Premier League opener at Leicester City on Monday.
"I've been in the game for a long time and every time situations like this arise, I've always tried to look at them in a couple of different ways," Postecoglou told reporters.
"One is there's a person involved and, in this case, it's Biss. He's made a really poor decision. You want to understand that and try and help him through that, and as a club, what we can do to make sure he doesn’t make those kind of choices and decisions in the future.
"There are still sanctions involved and some of those sanctions include education, and giving him a clear understanding of why he did what he did and how wrong it was.
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"You always want to give people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. The second part of that is he’s a footballer and he has responsibilities of the club and to his team-mates and our supporters.
"He won't be available for Monday. We've suspended him from Monday's game.
"Beyond that, there’s also some trust building that needs to happen between Biss and me, and Biss and the group. That’s what he needs to work hard at from now on to try and win that back.
"The door is open for him and hopefully we can help him realise the decisions he makes impacts more than just him. Hopefully it allows him to make better decisions moving forward."
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Bissouma, who moved to Spurs from Brighton in 2022, featured for 45 minutes in the club's pre-season defeat to Bayern Munich last weekend before the video was posted online.
The midfielder was an important member of the first-team squad during Postecoglou's debut campaign at Spurs, making 28 appearances in all competitions.
Postecoglou appeared to be frustrated by Bissouma's actions and explained that the player must now do the work to reintegrate himself back with the team.
"There's the personal ramifications, because it's illegal," the Australian added.
"Then there's the professional responsibility - the example you set as a professional footballer - because there are so many people who follow the Premier League and we're all in a pretty privileged position.
"He's made a poor choice. But within that context, we all make mistakes, there should always be an opportunity there for rehabilitation and redemption for every human being, including footballers.
"That's up to Biss now."
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