Now Hansen caught in race storm: Match of the Day pundit says sorry for calling black players 'coloured'

• Outrage on Twitter after pundit calls black players 'coloured'
• England captain John Terry to be charged over alleged racist remarks
  

By Paul Revoir for MailOnline
Updated: 06:54 EST, 23 December 2011

Alan Hansen has issued an apology after being dragged into the football racism row by referring to black players as ‘coloured’ on Match of the Day.

In a discussion of the controversies surrounding England captain John Terry and Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, Hansen used the word as he praised the achievements of black players in the Premier League.

But many viewers objected to the term – considered offensive because it dismisses everyone who is not white as the same – and the Corporation yesterday received more than 100 complaints.

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Controversy: BBC pundit Alan Hansen, left, came under fire for using the word 'coloured' on Match of the Day, and appeared to anger fellow commentator Lee Dixon, right

Accusations: Hansen was discussing the furore over players including England captain John Terry, left, and Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, right, who have allegedly made racist remarks

Others were quick to defend the former Scotland international, however, with Twitter users and former MP Ann Widdecombe describing the outrage at Hansen’s comment as an overreaction.

The fresh development comes as stewards at last night’s game between Terry’s club Chelsea and Tottenham wore head-mounted cameras to identify fans chanting offensive and racist abuse. Fans were also urged to text the control room if they heard any such language.

Hansen, who is thought to earn about £40,000 a show, used the term ‘coloured’ twice on Wednesday night’s edition of the BBC1 programme as he and fellow pundit Lee Dixon talked about racism in football.

The discussion happened on the day it was revealed Terry will face a criminal charge over allegedly using racist language on the pitch.

The 56-year-old said: ‘I think there’s a lot of coloured players in all the major teams and there are lots of coloured players who are probably the best in the Premier League.

‘If you look at 25 or 30 years ago it was probably in a bad way – not as bad as some of the other nations on the Continent – but certainly there is always, always room for improvement.’

After the row over his comments blew up yesterday, Hansen said in a statement: ‘I unreservedly apologise for any offence caused.

‘This was never my intention  and I deeply regret the use of  the word.’

A senior BBC sport insider said the pundit was ‘mortified’ about the comments, which came after a ‘really long’ and ‘challenging’ day in the studio.

They suggested that the heightened ‘sensitivity’ around descriptions of race on the football field may have led him to resort to a word he does not usually use. ‘He is not a racist at all, in any sense,’ they added.

Some viewers were clearly upset at Hansen’s choice of words, however.

Former Tottenham player Rohan Ricketts, now with Shamrock Rovers, wrote on Twitter that Hansen was ‘part of the problem’ adding: ‘We are black, Alan.’

A football fan wrote on the social networking website: ‘Anyone else’s jaw hit the floor as Alan Hansen said racism wasn’t a problem in English football because of success of “coloured” players?’

But ex-Premier League footballer Darren Huckerby tweeted: ‘Does anybody think that people are just jumping on the bandwagon about the Alan Hansen comment?’

Another observer wrote: ‘Massive overreaction about Alan Hansen calling black players “coloured”! He’s just old school.’

And another added: ‘Got to feel for Alan Hansen. Praising black PL players and condemning racism in football only for some idiots to take offence – ridiculous.’

Confrontation: Chelsea captain Terry allegedly called QPR's Anton Ferdinand s 'f****** black ****' during a match. Despite the first black international playing 130 years ago, times have not moved on enough

Punished: Liverpool player Luis Suarez has been handed an eight-match ban by the Football Association for racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra

Last night former Tory MP Miss Widdecombe also came to the pundit’s defence. ‘Given that he appears to be praising black players, nobody from that context could assume that word was meant to be derogatory,’ she said.

Whether the term ‘coloured’ is offensive has long been the subject of debate.

The word was commonly used in the 1960s and in the U.S. one of the most prominent human rights groups is the NAACP – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

But critics say it should be avoided as it collects everyone who is not white into a single group.

The row comes in a week that has seen racism pushed back to the top of football’s agenda.

Terry was told on Wednesday  that he will appear before magistrates in February charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.

The allegation refers to video footage appearing to show him shout an offensive comment at Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

The multi-millionaire defender faces a maximum fine of £2,500 if convicted.

Suarez, meanwhile, was given an eight-match ban by the Football Association on Tuesday after being found guilty of using insulting words to Patrice Evra, which included a reference to the Manchester United defender’s colour.

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Corruption, greed, and moral squalor: The scandals of football that SHOULD be tackled

Notorious: Terry's behaviour off the pitch makes him a national disgrace

When it comes to the issue of race, the Crown Prosecution Service appears to be riddled with double standards. Earlier this month, a Leicester court heard the shocking case of a white woman, Rhea Page, who was attacked on the street by a four-strong gang of Somalian girls.
Pulled to the ground, Ms Page was repeatedly kicked by her assailants amid cries of ‘white slag’ and ‘kill the white bitch’.

Despite their brutality, the attackers were given only suspended sentences. More remarkably, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge them with racially aggravated assault, even in the face of Ms Page’s powerful testimony about their vicious language towards her.

Yet now the very same organisation that was so dismissive of any racial element in the Leicester case has decided to take the England and Chelsea captain John Terry to court over a racist remark he allegedly made to the Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a match in London. Terry denies the charge and has said he will vigorously contest the case, which is likely to drag on into next summer.

I hold no candle for John Terry — in fact, quite the opposite — and any racist language is, of course, repugnant and offensive.

However, to treat a comment made on the pitch during a fiery Premier League clash as a matter for a full-blown criminal prosecution shows not only a lack of any sense of proportion, but also a disturbing eagerness to indulge in gesture politics.

Even many blacks feel that the issue has been overblown. Yesterday the Kenyan-born writer and academic Edwin Okong’o said that as a black man, he found the prosecution of Terry ‘utterly ridiculous’.

It is absurd that the incident is being handled by the judiciary at all. What this sorry saga demonstrates is both the hysteria of the Crown Prosecution Service and the hysteria within football over race relations.

Across the game there is the atmosphere of a witch-hunt, a self-righteous obsession with hounding those who are said to have infringed the politically correct linguistic or behavioural code.

What is so wrong about this sanctimonious indignation is that the same sense of outrage is not applied to other aspects of the sport. Football today is awash with greed, corruption, squalor and contempt for civilised conduct.

On the field, players are notorious for their cynical fouls, dangerous tackles, diving and abuse of the referee. Off the field, too many stars lead lives that would have made Nero blush, full of promiscuity and misogyny, gambling and drinking, their antics fuelled by vast pay packets that leave them disconnected from the British public.

The truth is that it’s the culture of yobbery and self-serving excess in football — not racism — that is the real problem. And John Terry personifies the very worst of it.

This is a man who earns £150,000-a-week. He captains both Chelsea and our national side, and should be an ambassador for the game and for Britain, someone for people to emulate.

Yet he is quite the opposite, He is a national disgrace. His career has been littered with appalling episodes, from brawls in bars to serial betrayals of his wife.

He drunkenly abused American tourists at Heathrow airport shortly after 9/11 and was caught urinating in a glass in a nightclub. Despite his colossal salary, his enthusiasm for exploiting his position as a Chelsea and England star is notorious. On one occasion, he allegedly accepted £10,000 for an unauthorised tour of Chelsea’s training ground. On another, it was revealed that his personal box at Wembley was being ‘touted out’ for £4,000 per match.

Terry also had an affair with the ex-girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, a former Chelsea team-mate and one of his best friends. He tried and failed to get an injunction to prevent the affair from being disclosed by newspapers before being relieved of the England captaincy, to which he has been re-instated.

And while all this revolting behaviour has been casually accepted as par for the course, the football authorities and legal establishment are only now having a fit of the vapours because of his alleged racist outburst.

Football is in the grip of a kind of McCarthyism. Just as the bullying American Senator Joe McCarthy of the Fifties saw Communists everywhere in his obsession with fighting the red menace, so football chiefs uncover racism at every turn.

Only yesterday, highly respected BBC pundit Alan Hansen was forced to issue a grovelling apology after he used the term ‘coloured’ to describe black players.

Sepp Blatter, pictured meeting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 'has presided over a moral cesspit, riddled with financial abuses and voting manipulation'

True, the term coloured might be outdated, even insensitive — though it is worth pointing out that the leading black rights organisation in the U.S. is called The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — but Hansen’s use of the word was hardly evidence that he is a closet racist. Yet you would not know it from all the outrage he attracted. Some denounced him, others even called for his sacking.

Laughably, the former striker Stan Collymore joined in the chorus of disapproval. Collymore is in no position to sit in moral judgement on anyone, given that he once savagely beat up his then girlfriend, the TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson, in a Paris bar.

It is the same story over Sepp Blatter, the president of football’s governing body Fifa. During his 13 years in power, Blatter has presided over a moral cesspit, riddled with financial abuses and voting manipulation.

Despite his sorry record, he was re-elected unopposed for a third term this year. It was only when he offended the politically correct brigade that his position came under threat, after he recently gave an interview in which he said that there was no problem with racism in football, and that any tensions  on the field could be settled with  a handshake.

Again, there was the usual grandstanding, accompanied by breast-beating and demands for a resignation. Never one to see a passing bandwagon without jumping onboard, Labour leader Ed Miliband called for Blatter’s departure, describing his comments as ‘a disgrace’.

The mood is all-pervasive. This week, the mixed-race Liverpool player Luis Suarez, from Uruguay, was fined £40,000 and banned for eight matches for allegedly racially abusing Manchester United’s Senegalese-born full-back Patrice Evra.

He would have received nothing like that punishment if he had inflicted a career-ending tackle on Evra or been caught in a hotel orgy.

Suarez is appealing and insists he did not commit any racist act. He says he called Evra ‘something his team mates at Manchester United call him, and even they were surprised by his reaction’.

His fellow Uruguayan Gus Poyet, now manager of Brighton, ame to Suarez’s defence, saying the sentence was ‘incredible, shocking and disproportionate’, adding that the incident had arisen because of Suarez’s lack of understanding about European culture.

‘Uruguay people and South Americans experience these situations with coloured people.’

I suppose Poyet, after using the term coloured, will be the next target after Hansen.

The tragedy of this politically correct outcry is it obscures the real progress made in tackling racism within football. No longer is the game scarred by abusive skinheads or violent hooligans, as happened in the Seventies and Eighties. Racist chanting at grounds has been massively reduced.

Moreover, players from ethnic minorities are increasingly influential. More than 30 per cent of all footballers in the Premiership are black, while the England team under Fabio Capello has had an average of five blacks in every game. That is a matter of great national pride.

Yet this has done nothing to reduce the hysteria of the authorities. Only yesterday, it was reported in the Mail that Tottenham Hotspur was to employ staff wearing cameras on their headgear to look out in the crowds for any displays of racism or homophobia at last night’s game against Chelsea.

‘Stewards will adopt a zero-tolerance policy,’ says Tottenham proudly. ‘We do not tolerate discrimination of any sort at the club.’

This is truly Orwellian, with the citizenry under close surveillance by the self-appointed commissars of political correctness. We would never tolerate such aggressive intrusion in other aspects of our lives.

Football would have far more credibility over race if it had put its own house in order on other issues.

There is a yawning chasm between its zero tolerance on race discrimination and its tolerance of grubbiness, greed and sordid self-indulgence that dominate the beautiful game.

Indeed, I don’t think it’s going too far to say that football’s moral posturing is almost as offensive as any of the primitive language that may come out of John Terry’s mouth.

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