The Scarlets player was widely criticised for posting the picture.
Wales rugby international Liam Williams has apologised for posing as Swansea City’s Wilfried Bony during a fancy dress party.
The 23-year-old Scarlets player posted a picture yesterday on his Twitter account alongside some of his team-mates, and Williams was ‘blacked-up’ posing as the Ivory Coast striker.
Williams received criticism on Twitter and from anti-racist organisation Show Racism the Red Card, however, he was initially dismissive of suggestions his ‘blacking-up’ costume was in very poor taste. He said he knew Wilfried Bony through a mutual friend, that the Swansea striker had taken no offence and that there was ‘not a racist bone in my body’.
However, Show Racism the Red Card’s campaign manager, Sunil Patel, was critical of the controversial photograph. ‘We are disappointed to see the image on his Twitter feed,’ Patel said. ‘We don’t condone this sort of behaviour, especially when we have got issues of racism in sport and society’.
‘I can’t comment on whether Wilfried is fine with it,’ Patel also said. ‘But I am sure many black people would not be fine with it.It is behaviour we do not really like to see. It’s something we might have seen 30 or 40 years ago but it is not something we expect to see in a multicultural society’.
Williams’ club Scarlets released a statement on the matter earlier today, saying they are ‘fully committed to eradicating discrimination and promoting equality for both staff and our customers by treating people fairly and according to their needs. Scarlets is proud of its record in promoting equality and non-discriminatory behavior amongst all our employees and this applies to the way we behave to members of the public and to other employees’.
Williams has since removed the picture from his twitter account and apologised for the incident.
I am very sorry for any offence caused by my actions. I’m not a racist and there was no malice behind it.
— Liam Williams (@SanjayWills) December 21, 2014
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