Carragher back at Sky

JAMIE CARRAGHER will continue as a pundit for Sky Sports next season while on a final warning following talks with network bosses during which his TV career was on the line. Carragher has been suspended since March after he spat out of his car window at a car carrying a 14-year-old girl and her father. The driver, who took a video of the incident, had been goading the former Liverpool defender about Manchester United’s victory that day. He will return for the start of the Premier League campaign next month following a meeting with Sky Sports chief Barney Francis last week in which Carragher persuaded his employers that there would be no repeat of the incident that caused such widespread revulsion. A Sky spokesman said: ‘We’ve spoken to Jamie and reminded him of the standards we expect at Sky Sports. He has shown remorse, is hugely apologetic for the offence he caused and has taken the appropriate steps to make sure that the incident will not be repeated.’ It is understood that the decision to retain Carragher went right to the top of the organisation. Carragher apologised the day after the video was made public, calling it ‘four or five seconds of madness’, and has benefited from his immediate remorse and his great popularity within Sky. But despite his standing as one of football’s most hardworking and well-informed analysts, he can still be considered very fortunate. Being on a final warning demonstrates how seriously Sky took the incident. Carragher will have to cope with a ferocious social media that will keep harking back to the incident. The 40-year-old has continued to work during his Sky suspension as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and for Scandinavian TV.