N_\e KM gle[`kj cfj\ k_\ gcfk
FOOTBALL pundit Jamie Carragher has been suspended until the end of the season by Sky over his spitting spat.
The 40-year-old former Liverpool and England star was filmed spitting from his car towards a girl in another vehicle on Saturday.
He has since said: “I’ve made a big mistake and accept full responsibility.”
But Carragher is not the only soccer commentator to have a “foot-in-mouth” moment.
Here JAMES MOORE looks at other scandals involving pundits over the years.
BIG WRONG ITV pundit Ron Atkinson was sacked after racist comments when microphones were meant to be off. He described player Marcel Desailly as, “a f***ing lazy thick n ***** .” Atkinson, now 78, has said: “It was idiotic.”
RED CARD In 2011, Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray were overheard making sexist comments about a female assistant referee. Gray, now 62, was sacked after suggestive comments towards colleague Charlotte Jackson and Keys, now 60, resigned.
OFF COLOUR On Match Of The Day in the same year, Alan Hansen referred to black players as coloured. Afterwards he said: “I unreservedly apologise.”
PARDON ME In 2009, on Match Of The Day 2, Alan Pardew analysed a tackle by Chelsea’s Michael Essien saying: “He’s a strong boy. He knocks him off – he absolutely rapes him.” Pardew apologised but was ditched from the show.
PUNCH DRUNK When former Everton and Man City player Peter Beagrie hit his girlfriend in a drunken rage it ended his career at Sky Sports.
BAD TASTE In 2005, Rodney Marsh appeared on You’re On Sky Sports and joked that David Beckham had turned down a move to Newcastle because of trouble with the “Toon Army in Asia”, just weeks after a tsunami had left 280,000 people dead. He was sacked.
QUEER COMMENT Martin O’Neill, who has worked for both BBC and ITV and is now Republic of Ireland manager, was forced to apologise when, in 2016, he used the expression “queers” at an event in the Opera House, Cork. He admitted his comments were “crass” and “inappropriate”.