Martin Tyler has apologised after he linked the ‘Hillsborough tragedy and other hooligan related incidents’ whilst appearing in an interview with the BBC.
The Sky Sports commentator was discussing 30 years of the Premier League earlier today when he made the insulting comments and received major backlash.
The BBC are believed to have received a high number of complaints regarding the comments and Tyler soon released the following statement: “while discussing various crises facing football 30 years ago, I referred to some examples including the Hillsborough disaster and also controversy over hooliganism at matches”.
“These are two separate issues,” he said.
“There is no connection at all between the Hillsborough disaster and hooliganism – I know that, and I was not implying that there was.”
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Steve Rotherham was one of many to express his outrage at the 76-year-old’s comments and took to his Twitter account writing: “Exceptionally crass comments from Martin Tyler on @BBCr4today – a man who should know much better.
“Even now, people whose careers are built on football still spread these foul smears. I hope there’ll be an apology sharpish.”
The Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region continued, “Astonishing too, that his remarks go unchallenged. But this happens far too often. It isn’t the first time and sadly won’t be the last.
“Tyler himself should know better but why do interviewers never challenge these smears that have been so resoundingly disproven time after time?”
It is rather bemusing as to why nobody challenged Tyler at the time.
It was clear that his comments were disrespectful and outright wrong but he still continued the interview as if nothing had happened.
An apology did soon come from the BBC, which read:“we regret that we did not robustly challenge Martin Tyler on a comment which appeared to link Hillsborough and hooliganism.”
“Martin has since apologised for the comment and clarified that these were separate examples and he did not intend to conflate the two,” a spokeswoman added.
Tyler is known for his usual bias commentating, especially when covering Liverpool games.
It’s sad that after Reds supporters were cleared of any blame following the tragedy that it is still linked to hooliganism.
You can see Rotherham’s tweet below alongside a video of Tyler’s insulting comments courtesy of @MetroMayorSteve on Twitter:
Astonishing too, that his remarks go unchallenged. But this happens far too often. It isn't the first time and sadly won't be the last.
Tyler himself should know better but why do interviewers never challenge these smears that have been so resoundingly disproven time and again? pic.twitter.com/nH3fXQCGwi
— Steve Rotheram (@MetroMayorSteve) August 5, 2022
The post Martin Tyler issues apology following insulting Hillsborough comments appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.
