Lord Sugar Accused of Racism After 'Joke Picture' Tweet About the Senegal Team
Former Tottenham chairman Alan Sugar has apologized for a racist tweet that poked fun at the Senegalese national team, reducing the players to lazy stereotypes of African traders who sell goods to tourists at beaches around Europe.
Posting a doctored image of the team, which included Liverpool star Sadio Mane, Lord Sugar captioned it with: "I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella. Multi tasking resourceful chaps."
The backlash was swift, with Twitter user Nadeem Ahmed remarking that the billionaire has previously been vocal about anti-Semitism in the Labour party.
But Lord Sugar, who fronts the UK version of the 'The Apprentice' on BBC, initially refused to back down and maintained that his tweet was 'funny'.
He only said that he would delete it only if people 'insist'.
As people called him out, he claimed that the offence was 'OTT', while also telling one user 'You make sick' after they highlighted the original tweet after it had been deleted.
All of Sugar's responses regarding the racists joke were then deleted, before an apology appeared, reading, "I misjudged me earlier tweet. It was in no way intended to cause offence, and clearly my attempt at humour has backfired. I have deleted the tweet and am very sorry."
A tweet from the BBC press office read, "Lord Sugar has acknowledged this was a seriously misjudged tweet, and he's in no doubt about our view on this. It's right he's apologised unreservedly."
Some bookmakers are now offering odds on whether the 71-year-old will still be fronting the 2018 series of the 'The Apprentice' later this year.
