The smoke hasn’t even begun to clear following this morning’s news that Tottenham Hotspur captain and keeper Hugo Lloris had been arrested by Metropolitan Police in London for drunk driving. However, the situation is bad enough that both the club and the player have issued informal statements addressing Hugo’s arrest.
First, the club — while any statement about Hugo’s infraction has yet to be reported on any official club news or social outlet, the media is running with a statement from the club hierarchy that says that the club takes incidents of drunk driving extremely seriously and that Hugo’s situation will be “dealt with internally.”
Now, Hugo himself has come out with a public statement, and he’s not at all denying what happened.
#thfc Statement from Hugo Lloris: “I wish to apologise wholeheartedly to my family, the club, my team-mates, the manager and all of the supporters. Drink driving is completely unacceptable, I take full responsibility for my actions and it is not the example I wish to set.”
— Ben Pearce (@BenPearceSpurs) August 24, 2018
This is, of course, the minimum we would expect from a player who has been arrested for drunk driving, but at this point it’s also probably the only thing he can do. It is a good thing that he’s owning up to his actions and isn’t shirking responsibility.
We haven’t yet heard anything that would indicate any sort of punishment for Lloris, but speaking as a Spurs fan I would probably advise other supporters to start operating under the assumption that either Michel Vorm or Paulo Gazzaniga will be in goal for Monday’s trip to Old Trafford.