UEFA has apologised to Tottenham Hotspur captain, Son Heung-min, Cristian Romero, and Rodrigo Bentancur for delaying their medal presentation in the Europa League final.
The three players were in action in the 1-0 win over Manchester United in the final in Bilbao but they were unable to get the winning medals during the official presentation by UEFA President, Aleksander Čeferin.
Subsequently, Captain Son lifted the trophy without a medal alongside Cristian Romero, and Rodrigo Bentancur while injured teammates James Maddison and Lucas Bergvall, who were not part of the matchday squad received medals following an error from UEFA.
UEFA confirmed that the medals were missing during the presentation before they presented it to the players in the dressing room.
The European Football ruling body apologised to Tottenham, and the players affected in a statement on Thursday.
The statement read: “To our great displeasure, we did not have enough medals available on stage during the trophy ceremony presentation due to an unexpected discrepancy in the player count, as more team members – including injured players – participated in the ceremony than initially anticipated.
“The missing medals were promptly delivered to the winning team in the dressing room, along with our sincerest apologies for the oversight.”
Uefa had planned to give out 30 medals on the pitch for the winning squad which consists of 23-man playing squad and coaching staff but other members of the team who were not named in the squad also participated in the presentation.
The two finalists are presented with 50 medals each according to the rules of the competition.
Son didn’t allow the error to dampen his celebrations while expressing his delight at the opportunity to end his trophy drought.
He said: “I felt the pressure. I wanted it so badly. The last seven days I was dreaming about this game every night. It finally happened and I can sleep easy now! We can celebrate today so let’s just make it one we will never forget and maybe I will miss the flight tomorrow!”.
Tottenham ended their 17-year trophy drought to win their first major European trophy.
