Andre Onana has responded to a social media post by Alejandro Garnacho that was directed at him following Manchester United's 1-0 win over Copenhagen.
Onana was the hero for United at Old Trafford on Tuesday evening, saving Jordan Larsson's stoppage time penalty to secure victory for Erik ten Hag's side.
In a post published on X (Twitter) after the match, which has since been deleted, Garnacho posted a photo of Onana celebrating. He captioned the post with two gorilla emojis.
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According to The Athletic, the FA are aware of Garnacho's post and have sought the Argentinian forward's observations.
SPORTbible has also contacted Manchester United and Garnacho's representatives for comment.
Onana has now responded to the post, and has come out in defence of his team-mate.
He took to X (Twitter) to write: "People cannot choose what I should be offended by.
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"I know exactly what Garnacho meant: power and strength. This matter should go no further."
In 2021, former United striker Edinson Cavani was banned for using a racially offensive term in an Instagram story.
Cavani apologised for using the term in the post, stating that it 'was intended as an affectionate greeting to a friend, thanking him for his congratulations after the game'.
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An FA commission concluded that the term was used 'in affectionate appreciation of a message from his Uruguayan friend and that it was not designed or intended to be racist or offensive either to his friend or others reading the content of the Instagram post'.
However, it also concluded that 'it [was] not sufficient that the player simply had no such intent', and that 'a follower of English Premier League football' would have deemed the term as racially offensive.
As a result, the FA imposed a three-match ban on Cavani.
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Topics: Andre Onana, Alejandro Garnacho, Premier League, Manchester United