Sky Sports News fires its White, male presenters
Posted by admin978 on August 28, 2020 · Leave a Comment
H&D readers might tend to assume that the BBC is the pinnacle of political correctness – not only in its actual political coverage but in drama, sport, etc.
Yet during the last few days its rival Sky Sports News has carried out what appears to be a racial and gender based purge of its presenters on the flagship show Soccer Saturday, aiming to create a more ‘diverse’ on-screen image.
Three longstanding presenters – all famous veteran footballers – were sacked on Tuesday:
- Matt Le Tissier, one of the most technically gifted English players of all time, who played 443 matches for Southampton from 1986 to 2002 and won eight England caps. Le Tissier is known to be politically conservative and caused controversy earlier this year when he refused to wear a ‘Black Lives Matter’ badge on screen because of the group’s ‘far left’ ideology.
- Phil Thompson, former captain of Liverpool and England whose honours include seven League champions’ medals and three European Cups. Thompson has been a Sky Sports presenter for 22 years.
- Charlie Nicholas, striker for clubs including Celtic and Arsenal, who won 20 caps for Scotland, for whom he played at the 1986 World Cup. Twice top scorer in Scottish football.
Soccer Saturday anchorman Jeff Stelling wrote on Twitter about his regret at the purge: “One of my saddest days ever at Sky Sports with the departure of three of my best mates. They have been part of a team that for me was the best.”
Also purged was the main presenter of Sky’s Football League coverage, former Charlton and Chelsea defender Scott Minto – yet another White male presenter to be removed from the channel.
Ironically this week also saw the Liberal Democrats elect a new leader. One might expect the Lib Dems to be more politically correct than Sky Sports, but the opposite proved true this week. The Lib Dems elected Sir Ed Davey as their new leader, rather than the half-Palestinian, self-described ‘pansexual’ Layla Moran.
Sir Ed – a 54-year old White heterosexual male – would have no chance of being recruited by a British sports broadcaster in 2020.
UPDATE – September 2020: Not to be outdone by Sky in the political correctness stakes, the BBC has now dismissed Sue Barker, former tennis star and presenter of its popular quiz show A Question of Sport as well as both of the show’s team captains, former England rugby captain Matt Dawson and veteran spin bowler Phil Tufnell. We can assume that at least two of these three vacancies will be filled by non-Whites as the diversity drive continues.
