Manchester City back Jason Denayer, who played on loan at Sunderland this past season, was videotaped kicking a man in the head during a street fight outside a nightclub in Brussels over the weekend.
The 21-year-old defender said he “reacted instinctively” when he saw his friend getting punched on the ground. According to the BBC, he said:
Of course I regret to have been caught up in a conflict that was not mine to begin with, but I saw my friend was in real danger and I had to interfere and protect him.
Denayer’s agent Jesse De Preter told the BBC that “Jason tried to be peaceful and to avoid further escalation” and that the Belgium international was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”