Dele Alli gets one-match ban for middle-finger gesture

England midfielder Dele Alli will miss next week’s match against Slovenia after receiving a one-match ban from Fifa for his middle-finger gesture against Slovakia.

The Spurs star has also been fined 5,000 Swiss francs (£3,852), the BBC reports, after Fifa deemed the incident “offensive and unsporting”.

During the match against against Slovakia on 4 September, Alli was caught on camera raising his middle finger, with some pundits saying that it was aimed towards match referee Clement Turpin.

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At the time the 21-year-old had insisted on Twitter that the gesture “was a joke between me and my good friend Kyle Walker”, but Fifa confirmed that even if it was directed at a team-mate it was in violation of its disciplinary code.

Fifa said in a statement: “Although the disciplinary committee was not convinced that the player directed the gesture at the referee, and regardless of whether it was allegedly directed at a team-mate, it did consider such gesture to be offensive and unsporting. Therefore it amounted to a violation of article 57 of the Fifa disciplinary code.”

Originally named in Gareth Southgate’s 26-man squad for the October double-header, Alli will next be available for the match on 8 October in Lithuania – the final match of England’s World Cup qualifying campaign.