Tottenham players apologize for Newcastle drubbing, refund away fans’ ticket fees

There continues to be fallout from Tottenham’s 6-1 loss to Newcastle at St. James’ Park on Sunday. The most visible one was obviously the sacking of Cristian Stellini and his staff and the appointment of Ryan Mason as acting head coach. But we hadn’t really heard from the players apart from an explosive post-match interview from Hugo Lloris immediately after the game.

Now we have. The players issued a statement, likely via the (newly revealed!) Players’ Committee, where they apologized directly to Spurs supporters and also refunded the ticket fees for the away fans who traveled to Newcastle.

My footballing memory is pretty crap and if this isn’t correct no doubt someone will correct me in the comments, but I can’t remember the last time that Tottenham refunded the ticket fees for ANY fans due to an on-field performance. It’s probably happened, I just can’t remember it. (Maybe it was the 5-1 loss to Newcastle in 2016?)

Refunding fan tickets is a uniquely European/British thing that is a bit alien to American sports fans, but I totally understand the impulse and it was the right thing to do I guess, especially considering the high cost of tickets. It’s also pretty important that the players also take responsibility for what happened on Sunday, so while this statement is a bit ok whatever, words are important even if they don’t change anything that actually happened.

God, do we still have six games left this season?