{"id":581297,"date":"2026-04-02T19:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581297\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:26:11","slug":"roberto-de-zerbi-apologises-to-spurs-fans-over-greenwood-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581297\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto de Zerbi apologises to Spurs fans over Greenwood comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Greenwood, who was 20 at the time, was widely regarded as one of England&#8217;s most promising young players when he was arrested in January 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Crown Prosecution Service dropped charges against him in February 2023 owing to &#8220;a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light&#8221;, which meant there was &#8220;no realistic prospect of conviction&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He subsequently left Old Trafford, initially moving to Spanish side Getafe on loan before signing for Marseille in July 2024 in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/cw0ywn4nwj0o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversial deal<\/a> worth up to \u00a326.6m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 24-year-old has gone on to score 47 times in 74 appearances across all competitions for the former European champions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alongside Paris St-Germain&#8217;s Ousmane Dembele, Greenwood was Ligue 1&#8217;s joint top scorer last season with 21 goals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The comments which have angered many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/tottenham-hotspur\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tottenham<\/a> fans were made in November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to get involved in anyone&#8217;s private life. I don&#8217;t even get into the private lives of my children, because I want to give everyone their freedom,&#8221; De Zerbi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;All I can see is that Mason seems a good lad, he paid in a strong way for what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He has probably here found the right environment for him, which gave him affection, and held out its hand to him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I look at him as a person, I feel sad for what happened in his life, without getting into the details.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Because the person I know here is very different to the one that has been described, especially in England.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">De Zerbi was accused of downplaying the allegations and painting Greenwood as a victim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The comments were called &#8220;unnecessary, ill-judged, and deeply offensive to a significant number of supporters&#8221; by one fans&#8217; organisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenwood, who was 20 at the time, was widely regarded as one of England&#8217;s most promising young players&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-581297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}