Kelvin MacKenzie has been suspended with immediate effect following comments made in a column about Everton’s Ross Barkley on Friday.
MacKenzie compared Everton’s Ross Barkley, whose grandfather was born in Nigeria, to a gorilla in the article. He also describing the 23-year-old as ‘thick’ and ‘one of our dimmest footballers’.
As well as this, he also suggested that men from Liverpool who earned similar ‘pay packets’ to that of Barkley were drug dealers.
Naturally, the column has prompted a furious response, eventually leading to The Sun confirming MacKenzie’s suspension via a statement.
Stan Collymore, who left talkSPORT radio shortly after they were bought by The Sun’s parent company, News Corporation, was one of many to be outraged by the content of the article.
Of the comparison between Barkley and a gorilla, Collymore tweeted that it was ‘implied racism at its finest’, before asking Ian Wright, a man who has written for The Sun, for his thoughts on the matter.
https://twitter.com/StanCollymore/status/852845000215973888
At this stage, Wright did not respond to Collymore – who he played alongside for England during the 1990s.
Collymore later tweeted the following…
Notice how many rats who work for the S** and proxies will be falling over themselves to turn on MacKenzie.
Self preserving rats.
Innit.
— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) April 14, 2017
Before quoting this Ian Wright tweet condemning MacKenzie with nothing but a laughing face emoji.
https://twitter.com/IanWright0/status/852958940149231616
— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) April 14, 2017
Wright then replied to Collymore, taking a swipe at his claims that he produced ‘award-winning radio’ while at talkSPORT before claiming that his tweets on MacKenzie were merely to make him sound relevant.
https://twitter.com/IanWright0/status/852977649932804096
Collymore replied with this…
Yes massa, whatever you say massa 😆 https://t.co/zYAZclq9rj
— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) April 14, 2017
Drawing criticism from some of those that saw it…
Prompting Wright to respond by referring to an incident of assault that involved Collymore and then girlfriend Ulrika Jonsson.
Probably not the last we’ll hear of this one…
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