Marko Arnautovic has been banned one game at EURO 2020 after the Austrian attacker insulted a pair of opponents, North Macedonian midfielder Ezgjan Alioski and defender Egzon Bejtulai, in a nationalist outburst during the two nations’ Group C opener on Sunday.
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As such, Arnautovic is now set to miss Thursday’s clash with presumed group-toppers, the Netherlands.
Arnautovic was accused of lobbing anti-Albanian slurs at the duo, both of whom have Albanian roots. Arnautovic was born in Austria but his father is Serbian, where tensions with Albania (and North Macedonia) are historically high.
In an attempt to cease the hateful rhetoric by Arnautovic after he scored Austria’s third goal to put the game away, star and captain David Alaba confronted his teammate in the most direct manner possible.
So we realize Arnautovic flashed the "white power" symbol and then went on a racist (allegedly anti-Albanian) rant, right? #EURO2020 pic.twitter.com/4Ly7XvBHL2
— Jerrad Peters (@jerradpeters) June 14, 2021
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After the game, the Shanghai Port winger took to Instagram to apologize “to [his] friends from North Macedonia and Albania” for “some heated words” while insisting that he is “NOT A RACIST” because “[he has] friends in almost every country.” As of the writing of this post, Arnautovic’s Instagram page (@m.arnautovic7) appears to have either been deactivated or deleted.
