{"id":16741,"date":"2025-08-15T15:05:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16741"},"modified":"2025-08-15T15:05:47","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:05:47","slug":"frank-urges-fans-to-back-tel-after-racist-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16741","title":{"rendered":"Frank urges fans to back Tel after racist abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Thomas Frank urged Tottenham fans to back Mathys Tel in Saturday&#8217;s Premier League opener against Burnley after the French forward was racially abused this week.<\/p>\n<p>Tel endured racist taunts on social media following his missed penalty in the shoot-out defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Tottenham said they were &#8220;disgusted&#8221; at the abuse and Tel&#8217;s team-mates Dominic Solanke and Richarlison sent messages of support online.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out warned players may think twice about taking penalties in the future after the abuse of the 20-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of former Brentford boss Frank&#8217;s first league game in charge of Tottenham, the Dane demanded Tel be shown love and respect from supporters in north London this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s of course terrible what happened to Matty and we&#8217;re doing everything we can to support him in this situation,&#8221; Frank told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a strong person and with hopefully the support from his family, friends and us he will get through it, but also there&#8217;s no real Tottenham supporter that will ever do that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The real Tottenham supporters that we&#8217;ll see tomorrow at the stadium, they&#8217;ll back him, I expect them to.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Listen, in tough times we step up together and I expect the fans to give him a really, really, really big cheer tomorrow.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tel will be part of the matchday squad alongside Yves Bissouma, who was dropped for the Super Cup clash after being late on multiple occasions for training this summer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There was a situation. I addressed this. There was a consequence. Bissouma will be in the squad tomorrow. Move forward and we have a big game,&#8221;\u00a0 said Frank.<\/p>\n<p>The Mali midfielder has entered the final year of his contract, anf his future could still be away from Tottenham as the club remain active in the transfer window.<\/p>\n<p>Crystal Palace&#8217;s Eberechi Eze and Manchester City attacker Savinho are reportedly\u00a0 targets, but Frank refused to be drawn on specific names.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In many ways, I&#8217;m very happy with the squad. I think there&#8217;s a lot of good players,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, we want as strong and competitive a squad as possible. I know that Daniel (Levy), Johan (Lange) and Vinai (Venkatesham) are working night and day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Saturday will mark Frank&#8217;s Tottenham home debut after he replaced the sacked Ange Postecoglou in the close-season.<\/p>\n<p>Frank is under pressure to improve on Tottenham&#8217;s dismal 17th place finish in the Premier League last season, with their Europa League final victory over Manchester United not enough to save Postecoglou.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know when I wake up tomorrow and I know when I step into the stadium that I will feel a little butterflies no doubt,&#8221; Frank said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;ll be the first time, so that&#8217;ll be special.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Frank urged Tottenham fans to back Mathys Tel in Saturday&#8217;s Premier League opener against Burnley after the French forward was racially abused this week. Tel endured racist taunts on social media following his missed penalty in the shoot-out defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday. Tottenham said they were &#8220;disgusted&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}