THE sexism row in football took another twist yesterday, after Richard Keys resigned from his role as the main football presenter for Sky Sports. Keys faced the cameras yesterday for the first time since he was caught off-camera making sexist jibes about women not understanding the offside rule. He said sorry to those he offended, before heading to Sky offices in London to confirm his departure.
In a statement released by Sky Sports, he said; “I am deeply sorry for my remarks and the offence it has caused; it was wrong and it should never happened. I have thought long and hard and reached the decision that it is time to move on.”
Keys long-time Sky partner in crime Andy Gray, was sacked on Tuesday after new video footage was released seeing the former Everton striker suggest that female presenter Charlotte Jackson should ‘tuck his shirt in’ during a rehearsal for a Monday Night Football game in December. More YouTube footage appeared yesterday of Keys asking Sky pundit Jamie Redknapp whether he had “smashed it” with an ex-girlfriend. This seems to have been the final straw for the Coventry City supporter, who has fronted Sky’s groundbreaking football coverage for the past two decades.
Yesterday, Gray also apologised in a statement through his lawyers and admitted he was “devastated by losing the job that I love.”
The presenters downfall started when they were caught making off-air comments about female assistant Sian Massey not understanding the offside rule in the build-up to Saturday’s Sky lunchtime clash between Wolves and Liverpool. West Ham chief executive Karen Brady was also a victim to the vulgar comments. A tape was passed onto the Mail on Sunday and the storm began. On Sunday, neither made an apology during the televised match between Blackburn Rovers and West Brom, which turned out to be the pair’s last appearance on Sky Sports. On Monday, the pair was disciplined and suspended by Sky Sports managing director Barney Francis from presenting this week’s Monday Night Football clash involving Bolton Wanderers and Chelsea. More footage was later released of Gray’s tirade at Massey with Sky reporter Andy Burton, who has also been suspended by Sky for his part in the scandal. Andy Gray was sacked on Tuesday evening, after the third act of his comments about Charlotte Jackson leaked onto the internet. Sian Massey, the innocent party in the sexism storm was withdrawn from her line official job at Tuesday’s League Two game at Crewe Alexandra and has been appointed to a Blue Square Premier match at the weekend. She has tried to keep out of the public spotlight as best as she can, whilst the media continue to hound her. Ironically, she made an outstanding call in the game at Molineux on Saturday; judging correctly that Raul Meireles had been played onside by Wolves full-back Ronald Zubar, which led to Liverpool’s first goal in a 3-0 victory.
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| SORRY: Richard Keys on TalkSport yesterday (courtesy of TalkSport) |
Richard Keys took to the airwaves on the sports talk radio show, TalkSport. See below for some of what he had to say.
“I want to reiterate what I said to Sian Massey during the second half of the Blackburn v West Brom game, not as reported at 5pm on the Monday evening. I rang on behalf of Andy and myself on Sunday afternoon. I made an official apology, which Sian accepted. She and I enjoyed some banter together and we left on very good terms. I can’t tell you anymore about the conversation beyond saying she was in good spirits and I expressed my disappointment that Andy and I, misguided having some fun had got it wrong. There is no excuse anywhere for anybody to make a judgement on someone’s else ability to do a job because they are male or female. “I apologised on the Sunday. Now, there are some dark forces at here. I having done that asked whether we could make the public aware that we’d done that, we’d had a conversation and both parties felt it was right to move on. I was told no and 24 hours passed. By which time, the world had gone mad. Now, I don’t know why I was told no, why I was told to stop people from telling them that’s what I had done and I remember saying this to Sian; Sian, I need to make this official. On behalf of Andy and myself, we unreservedly apologise for our behaviour. It was wrong.”
Listen to the first 15 minutes of the interview at; http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/audio/2011/jan/26/richard-keys-talksport-interview-audio
Hopefully his departure will bring an end to the embarrassment that Sky Sports has suffered over the past five days. Can Sky’s football coverage stay strong without these two figureheads? That remains to be seen. However, both Richard Keys and Andy Gray have paid the price and rightly so. There is absolutely no place in the world for these sexist comments, whether they were banter or not.
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