Wojciech Szczesny was filmed smoking a vape inside Barcelona’s dressing room in the aftermath of their 4-0 victory over Real Madrid on Saturday night.
Barca’s players were jubilant as their win in El Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu has put them six points clear of arch rivals Madrid in La Liga.
Barcelona sealed their 4-0 win over Madrid with a second-half double from Robert Lewandowski, plus goals from Yamal and Raphinha.
Barcelona’s official social media accounts captured the celebrations of the players inside the dressing room, however, the Catalan club were forced to delete one video in which Szczesny was seen exhaling smoke from his mouth whilst standing next to Lamine Yamal.
Szczesny, who came out of retirement in September in order to join Barcelona, was dropped by Arsene Wenger and fined £20,000 for smoking in the showers after Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat to Southampton on New Year’s Day in 2015.
‘Back at that time I was smoking regularly and the boss knew it very well,’ Szczesny said of his smoking incident at Arsenal. ‘He just didn’t want anybody smoking in the dressing rooms and I knew that also.
‘Because of the emotion of the game, I had a cigarette after the game when the team was still in. I went in the corner of the showers, so it was at the other end of the dressing room and nobody could see me, and I lit one up.
‘Somebody saw me, it wasn’t even the boss himself, and just reported it back to the boss. I saw him a couple of days later, he asked me if that was true and I said, ‘Yes’. He fined me and that was the end of it.
‘He then said, ‘look, you’re going to be out of the team for a little bit’, but there was no big bust-ups or big confrontations. I was very professional about it.’
The 34-year-old has smoked throughout his career but is adamant that it does not have an impact on his performance.
In an interview with Mundo Deportivo earlier this month, Szczesny defended his smoking habit and insisted he had no plans to change what he does in his personal life.
‘There are things that I don’t change in my personal life and it’s nobody’s business if I smoke,’ Szczesny said.
‘I believe that it doesn’t affect what I do on the pitch, I work twice as hard.
‘I don’t do it in front of kids because I don’t want to have a bad influence on them. Sometimes somebody will take a photo from the trees where I have a cigarette, that’s on them, not on me.
‘If somebody thinks that I will change the way I am in my personal life they can think again because I am who I am. I’ve been this way my whole life.’
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