BERLIN (AFP, REUTERS) - Borussia Monchengladbach fined striker Marcus Thuram one month's salary, to be paid to a charity, on Sunday (Dec 20) for spitting on an opponent the previous day.
"Marcus has accepted this and has also offered to engage with this social cause on his own," the club's sporting director Max Eberl said in a statement.
Thuram was sent off after a video review showed him spitting in the face of Stefan Posch of Hoffenheim as the two argued during a Bundesliga match.
With Gladbach down to 10 men, Hoffenheim scored a late goal and won 2-1.
"Today something took place that is not in my character and must never happen," Thuram, a 23-year-old France international, posted on Instagram after the game, adding that the spit "occurred accidentally and not intentionally."
"I apologise to everyone, to Stefan Posch, to my opponents, to my teammates, to my family and to all those who saw my reaction."
Thuram, the son of France's 1998 World Cup winner Lilian, had won the penalty from which Lars Stindl scored Gladbach's opener, but with 10 men the hosts conceded a late goal to lose 2-1, their first home league defeat of the season.
Gladbach coach Marco Rose said Thuram had done the team a "disservice".
"On behalf of the club and personally as head coach, I would like to apologise for the red-card incident... It is completely out of line and has no place on the football pitch," he said. "Marcus is a good person, is self-reflecting... He must have blown a fuse in the moment - it's the only explanation for his behaviour," Gladbach said in a statement.
In addition to the club fine, Thuram faces a long ban from the German Football Association.
Eberl said he had a "long discussion" with the player on Sunday morning and that the player was "devastated".
Thuram "told me that during a dispute with Stefan Posch, he had unintentionally spat after cursing several times in French in the heat of the moment. He knows that this doesn't change anything and that the pictures speak for themselves, and that the sending-off was the right call", he said.
"I have come to know him as a reflective person with a great demeanour," said Eberl. "He remains the same person we know, and we will stand by him."
