Enzo Fernández’s social media video and subsequent apology. (@dw_sports and @AbsoluteChelsea on X/Twitter.)
By Andrew Bucholtz on

The Copa América Final win Argentina’s men’s national soccer team recorded over Colombia Sunday already had some less-than-stellar aspects thanks to the security and fan crush issues at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. But the Argentina team’s response to that victory has caused further problems still. In particular, they posted videos of players singing a song disparaging the national heritage of players on the French men’s national team (which was not in this tournament):

That obviously took a lot of blowback, and sparked a lot of controversy. And it’s notable that this wasn’t just outsiders filming. Indeed, some of this came from Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernández (who plays for Chelsea in England’s Premier League at the club level), who broadcast this on his Instagram account. But that led to his club teammate Wesley Fofana (a French national player who was born in France) calling him out:

In the end, Fernández did offer an apology for this. Unfortunately for him, he did so in the most-mocked typeface. That would be Comic Sans. And that led to a lot of comment. Here’s some of that:

Of course, the history here isn’t necessarily known by Fernández or his PR team. But Comic Sans in sports has long been mocked, particularly around Cleveland Cavaliers’ owner Dan Gilbert’s (later-removed) angry breakup letter to LeBron James in 2014. And it’s not a particularly serious typeface in general, and certainly not one that should be used for an apology.

Yes, the far more serious issue around the Copa América Final is the security failure and resulting fan crush. But that doesn’t mean these post-celebration actions from the Argentina team should be overlooked. (And it’s notable that their team’s official English Twitter/X account took different criticism earlier in the tournament.) And it’s definitely interesting that Fernández’s attempt to address this took criticism over a very-avoidable typeface choice.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz