A north London dispute has moved from the terraces to league administration. Tottenham Hotspur have filed a formal complaint with the Premier League over Joao Castelo-Branco, an ESPN Brazil correspondent, after a video surfaced of him joining Arsenal fans in a derogatory chant about the club.
Castelo-Branco, who is an Arsenal supporter, was filmed with Gunners fans in Brazil singing that they “hate” Tottenham. The clip was posted on a podcast’s Instagram account and shared on his personal page before being taken down.
The scope of Spurs’ request is unusually narrow. The club is not trying to stop ESPN Brazil from covering their matches in general. It has asked only that Castelo-Branco personally no longer be the correspondent dispatched to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or given access to the head coach and players.
From Instagram clip to league inbox
Formal complaints by a Premier League club against an individual media figure, routed through the league itself rather than handled in a public statement, are rare. The route Tottenham chose points at the governance channel rather than at ESPN directly: the league was asked to intervene, and the league then relayed the objection to the broadcaster.
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What followed moved quickly. Castelo-Branco removed the video from his channels and sat down for an online meeting with ESPN and the Premier League. He also sent an apology by email directly to the club.
Castelo-Branco: “I made a mistake”
Speaking to The Times, the Brazilian correspondent accepted the criticism.
“I wanted to apologise to the club for the video I recorded with Arsenal fans in Brazil singing a derogatory chant about Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Given my role as a correspondent in the UK I feel I made a mistake.”
He told the paper he had not thought enough about how the clip would land with Spurs supporters and said he would reconsider the “boundaries” of his on-camera persona on the podcast.
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A decision before the Ipswich fixture
Tottenham’s next home match is against Ipswich Town on Saturday, 21 November, and the club has indicated it will use the international break to consider its response. The practical decision is whether Castelo-Branco is granted stadium accreditation for that fixture, or whether ESPN Brazil has to send a different correspondent.
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