Slavia Prague’s president has offered an apology for comments made in a video that suggested Kasper Schemichel was overweight.
Slavia meet Leicester in the Europa League round-of-32 on Thursday evening, and had published a video to their social channels earlier this week.
The clip explores a little bit of Leicester’s history and on the most part is pretty well-intentioned.
It compliments the club’s scouting, praises a few individuals and references the club’s title-winning season. So you know, all pretty standard stuff so far.
However Czech journalist Jiri Hosek goes off on a bit of a tangent when talking about Schmeichel.
“Occasionally he makes a blunder, but his overall performance has been extremely good. He’s the glue that holds the team together,” he said.
“He is a goalkeeper who has had problems with a healthy lifestyle. A manager who favours athleticism [like Slavia’s Jindřich Trpišovský] would probably want Schmeichel to lose 5 to 10 kilos,” he added.
“As far as I know, he must be the only player in the Premier League who, underneath his shirt, wears a corset.”
Following the clip, Slavia Prague’s deputy chairman of the board, Jaroslav Tvrdik, has apologised for the comments.
The games against Leicester will be a special occasion. We approach them with a great respect for the club and its players. We are sorry that some of the opinions put forward could have been interpreted as offensive. It was not our intention. We are looking forward to both games.
— Jaroslav Tvrdik (@JaroslavTvrdik) February 16, 2021
“The games against Leicester will be a special occasion. We approach them with a great respect for the club and its players.” He wrote.
“We are sorry that some of the opinions put forward could have been interpreted as offensive. It was not our intention. We are looking forward to both games.”
Hi Jamie. Really sorry if this was the only impression from this episode. If you watch it you will get to the part where Kasper Schmeichel is praised for his performance and described as one of the key players for the team. We have great respect for the club
— SK Slavia Prague EN (@slavia_eng) February 16, 2021
The whole thing is just really bizarre, the clip does pay tribute to the goalkeeper too – though there’s something about mixing those compliments with accusations of being overweight that makes it feel a little less genuine.
Featured image credit: Getty