The FA have banned Liverpool’s 16-year-old prodigy Harvey Elliott for 14 days for a video he appeared in which showed him mocking Harry Kane.
We don’t need to go into details of what Elliott did – you all with have seen it – but it was undeniably stupid.
Obviously, at 16-years-old, we all did foolish things without much thought of the consequence, but Elliott’s move to Liverpool from Fulham brought previous social media posts into the limelight and he’ll now pay the price.
Paul Joyce tweeted the news today:
Harvey Elliott has been banned for 14-days by the Football Association following an investigation into video footage in which he mocked Harry Kane.
— paul joyce (@_pauljoyce) October 11, 2019
When the video first began to circulate at the end of July, Elliott went to Instagram to issue a formal apology.
“I would just like to wholeheartedly apologise for any offence caused on the back of a video of me currently circulating on the internet,” he said, reported in the Guardian. “The video was taken whilst messing around with friends in a private environment and was not directed at any individual but I realise that my actions were both immature and senseless.
“I would like to stress that the contents of the video do not represent who I am as a person or how I’ve been brought up, and I am truly sorry.”
We believed this would be enough and the ban has come out of the blue – but it will be a harsh lesson Elliott will now have learned on the expectations off the field of him as a professional footballer.
Not everyone has to grow up so quickly, but when you’re good enough to play for Liverpool at 16, you have to.
He’ll bounce back from this – and he’ll still be available to play for us in the EFL Cup fixture with Arsenal – which isn’t for 19 days.
FA statement on Harvey Elliott#LFC pic.twitter.com/4GWLh8I1F7
— Neil Jones (@neiljonesgoal) October 11, 2019