Celtic lodge complaint with Ofcom about Sky Sports’ Morelos interview and label it ‘fake news’
Celtic have described as “inadequate” an apology issued by Sky Sports for inaccuracies in the translation of an interview with Alfredo Morelos which suggested Celtic fans had racially abused the Rangers striker, pictured.
The Parkhead club have lodged an official complaint with broadcasting regulator Ofcom because they feel the apology “does not identify the source of the translation or why phrases, which bore no relationship to the words used by Mr Morelos, were introduced into it”.
Celtic added in a statement: “The use of mis-translation to convey false meaning is a dangerous form of ‘fake news’ which must be condemned and sanctioned.”
Skysportsscreenedanexclusive one-to-one interview with the Colombian internationalist on Monday, in which the player answered questions in Spanish. The broadcaster provided subtitles, some of which bore little or no relation to the 23-year-old’s responses.
In one segment, according to the translated answers, Morelos claimed he had been the victim of racial abuse from Celtic fans, which was incorrect.
Asked by the interviewer, “How often do you experience racist abuse from a crowd?” Morelos actually replied: “I feel there are lots of racist gestures aimed at me. At Aberdeen, for instance, they insulted my mother, me, they threw coins at me. People often throw things at me when I score at away games.”
Sky Sports’ original translation suggested that Morelos was accusing Celtic supporters of subjecting him to the abuse. On Wednesday the broadcaster issued an apology, saying: “We have identified inaccuracies in the translation of Sky Sports News’ interview with Alfredo Morelos. We apologise to both Celtic and Rangers football clubs as well as Alfredo Morelos for the issues caused by these errors.
“After numerous steps undertaken by Sky to verify the interview thoroughly we can be clear that at no point did Morelos allege that any racial abuse was directed at him by Celtic supporters in the interview. We apologise to the supporters of Celtic for this serious error. We are reviewing our procedures for translated interviews to ensure this does not occur in future.”
However, Celtic are unhappy with the response and have written to Ofcom. The letter states: “Mr Morelos spoke in Spanish and sub-titles were provided. It is our contention that the presentation of this interview was grossly and irresponsibly misleading due to the wildly inaccurate and tendentious translation which was provided in the sub-titles.”