Stan Collymore has been criticised by an anti-discrimination group for his use of the word ‘fairies’ when tweeting about Manchester City’s 3-0 victory over Southampton on Sunday.
The former Liverpool and Aston Villa striker, who has moved into a career as a broadcaster, sent out the following tweet in relation to referee Mike Jones’ decision to show a yellow card to Sergio Aguero after he judged to Argentinian to have dived.
Easiest thing to slaughter a ref. Maybe if they didn’t have so many fairies going down like Devon Lock we’d get less confused decisions.
— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) November 30, 2014
The term ‘fairy’ is considered to be a derogatory slang word for homosexual men and equal rights group Football v Homophobia immediately gave their take on Collymore’s use of it – “Whatever you think about diving, homophobic abuse is unacceptable.”
The anti-discrimination group Kick It Out also commented on the situation, saying: “Only Stan Collymore himself would be able to clarify what he meant when using the word. There does need to be greater education around the use of such terminology, as ‘fairy’ has historically been used as a slur towards members of the LGB&T community. It is important these sensitivities are recognised.”
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