The incident happened in the closing stages of last weekend’s match. According to Le Havre coach Didier Digard, Dønnum made a gesture with his hand in front of his nose, directly in front of Ebonog. “If you say that has nothing to do with racism, what is it? That he wanted to tell my player that he stinks?”, Digard responded sharply. “Everyone knows what that gesture means, especially depending on where people come from. Maybe he lost his mind for a moment, but that gesture is completely unacceptable.”
Dønnum himself strongly denies that he meant anything discriminatory. In the mixed zone after the match, he gave his version of events: “I felt them coming towards me, ready for an upset,” said the Norwegian. “The first impression I had was that I smelled his breath. Then I made that gesture with my hand in front of my nose. It had nothing to do with racism — I just meant that it smelled bad. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have done that, but instead of getting into an argument or a fight, I just walked away.”
Both Toulouse and Le Havre published statements trying to calm the situation. However, the ethics committee of the French Football Federation (FFF) has now decided to officially investigate the matter. The incident is also mentioned in the referee’s report.
10 match suspension?
If the Ligue 1 disciplinary committee judges the gesture as discriminatory, Dønnum risks a ten-match ban. According to the regulations, that penalty applies to any form of discrimination based on “ethnic origin, nationality, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation or disability.”
It remains to be seen whether Dønnum will still have to answer before the committee, but the affair is already causing quite a stir in France.