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22 Aug 2014

LMA apologises for Mackay’s ‘friendly banter’ apology

Ex-Cardiff manager Malky Mackay’s statement that offensive text messages were “banter” was widely condemned: now the League Managers Association (LMA) has apologised for its apology.

The LMA released a statement on behalf of Mackay on Thursday night, after it emerged that the Football Association was investigating the 42-year-old former Cardiff manager, and his former recruitment manager Iain Moody, over alleged racist, sexist and homophobic texts.

In the statement, Mackay admitted that some text messages were “disrespectful of other cultures” and said he would fully co-operate with any official investigation after his former club Cardiff sent a damning dossier to the FA. But the LMA added that he had been under pressure when sending the texts and was “letting off steam to a friend during some friendly text message banter”.

On Friday morning, the original apology was removed from the organisation’s website and in another, separate statement, the LMA apologised for the original wording “which was inappropriate and has been perceived to trivialise matters of a racist, sexist or homophobic nature. That was certainly not our intention”.

The furore surrounds a document handed to the FA by Cardiff, which reportedly contains allegations of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic text messages. Referring to a list of transfer targets, one reportedly read: “Not many white faces amongst that lot but worth considering”, while another referred to South Korean international Kim Bo-Kyung as a “fkn chinky”.

The original defence did not go down so well. Former Liverpool player Stan Collymore, an anti-racism campaigner, said on Twitter: “LMA statement. F****** disgraceful. Institutional acceptance of the ‘banter’ of casual racism.”

QPR manager Harry Redknapp cut a lonely figure in defending Mackay, saying: “I’m not condoning what he has done but show me someone who has ever made a mistake and I will show you a liar.

“He hasn’t murdered anyone, he hasn’t raped anyone and he is not a paedophile.”

LMA statement on Thursday: “It emerged that Malky had, it seems, sent a couple of one line texts that were, with the benefit of hindsight, very regrettable and disrespectful of other cultures. These were two text messages sent in private at a time Malky felt under great pressure and when he was letting off steam to a friend during some friendly text message banter.”

LMA statement on Friday: “The LMA apologises for some of its wording, in its release yesterday, which was inappropriate and has been perceived to trivialise matters of a racist, sexist or homophobic nature. That was certainly not our intention. It is beyond argument that any comments that are discriminatory, even used in private, are totally unacceptable.”
Read the LMA statement in full

But former player and manager Leroy Rosenior, who is also an LMA member, said that he was thinking about withdrawing his support from the association after the apology on behalf of Mackay. “If the LMA are going back into the dark ages to support people then I might have to withdraw my support,” he said. “In over 70,000 text messages I’ve sent I’ve never used inappropriate language and I’m sure neither has the vast majority of people.”

Various football commentators went on Twitter to vent, calling the statement “beyond parody”, “ill-conceived, embarrassing and offensive” and “disappointing”.

And here is what Channel 4 News readers on Twitter had to say: