SUGAR’S OWN GOAL
Apprentice star accused of racism for mocking African side
LORD Sugar was accused of racism yesterday for a tweet comparing African footballers to beach touts.
Hours after Senegal beat Poland, he posted a crudely edited picture showing players with rows of sunglasses and handbags apparently laid out on sheets in front of them.
The former Labour donor told his 5.47million Twitter followers: ‘I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella. Multi tasking resourceful chaps.’
The team featured by the billionaire was not the current World Cup squad which recorded the 2-1 win on Tuesday but from 2014.
The photo sparked an immediate reaction with accusations of racism against The Apprentice star.
At first, the 71-year-old defended his message, insisting it was intended as a joke and that he still thought it was ‘funny’ with no reason to apologise.
But less than 90 minutes later, his response had changed dramatically. Lord Sugar tweeted a grovelling apology and deleted the original message plus his attempts to defend it.
Embarrassingly, the row came on the same day the BBC launched a landmark report on diversity and equality. The corporation faced calls to investigate and for Lord Sugar to be axed from The Apprentice. Former England player Stan Collymore tweeted BBC Sport to say: ‘The word you’re looking for is racist... It’s racism. Say it.’
He added: ‘Imagine a black peer saying something anti- Semitic about the Israeli football team at a World Cup.
‘He’d have already been sacked, possibly arrested, and would be the front page of every paper tomorrow.’
Nigerian-born actress Kelechi Okafor tweeted: ‘Lord Sugar is constructing this joke on the premise that all black people look alike, are poor and cannot achieve social mobility.’ Campaign group Show Racism the Red Card said: ‘ This lazy, stereotypical and bigoted kind of attitude belongs to a bygone era.’
Piara Powar, of Football Against Racism in Europe, said the tweet was ‘disgraceful and damaging’.
Labour MP Dawn Butler said she would ask the House of Lords and the BBC to investigate.
Lord Ouseley, chairman of football equality group Kick It Out, said Lord Sugar should have known better.
In Metro newspaper, he said: ‘This coming from one of Britain’s most respected business leaders, a man who was born in to an East End Jewish family and is proud of his roots, and a former Tottenham Hotspur chairman. Someone, in other words, who ought to know about racist stereotypes.
‘It shows we have a long way to go. Any assumption made about somebody based purely on their race is racism.
‘There’s no getting away from that. Even when the perpetrators think they’re being funny, it’s unacceptable.’
Lord Sugar, whose fortune was estimated at £1.15billion in 2016, told Mirror Online he had been sent the edited image and had tweeted it as a joke.
He said: ‘I have fought against racism for years and I sincerely didn’t think this could be interpreted in any other way other than funny.’ The magnate had praised a jail sentence for a student who posted racist comments about footballer Fabrice Muamba in 2012.
But a year later, police said one of his tweets showing a crying Chinese child was a ‘hate incident’.
Lord Sugar had written: ‘The kid is upset because he was told off for leaving the production line of the iPhone 5.’ Merseyside Police acted after a shop keeper in Liverpool complained he was making light of exploited Asian workers.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘ Lord Sugar has acknowledged this was a seriously misjudged tweet and he’s in no doubt about our view on this. It’s right he’s apologised unreservedly.’