Franck Ribery fined for social media outburst

As you may have heard, Franck Ribery got a little loose when he started taking criticism for his lush dinner with Salt Bae (what has my life come to that I just typed that sentence).

Unfortunately for Ribery, the rough language he used is responding to his critics put Bayern Munich in a spot where it had to react with discipline in the form of a fine. A release from the team provided the rationale for the penalty:

FC Bayern Munich has fined Franck Ribéry for his choice of words used on social platforms. The decision was revealed by sports director Hasan Salihamidzic at the training camp in Doha today, who said that the player “used words which we as FC Bayern Munich cannot accept and which Franck as a role model, as a player of FC Bayern, must never use. I spoke to Franck for a long time yesterday and told him he would receive a hefty fine. He has accepted this punishment.”

BFW Analysis

As John N. Dillon expertly lampooned here, this is really a non-issue. Rich people like expensive things. Ribery appears to be charitable (a quick Google search turned up a €150,000 charitable donation last fall at a minimum), but in the end who cares what he does with this money?

Alex Rodriguez commissioned a painting of himself as a centaur and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez has a gold statue of himself made. Athletes make a lot of money and athletes spend a lot of money...sometimes on ridiculous things.

Regardless of all of that, Ribery’s social media outburst put Bayern in a spot where it had to make some sort of move to protect the club’s public image.