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Ross Barkley: Police investigate 'racist' Sun article about Everton player


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Ross Barkley: Police investigate 'racist' Sun article about Everton player

1 hour ago

From the section Football

Ross Barkley has been at Everton since 2005

Merseyside Police are investigating allegations that a newspaper article about Everton midfielder Ross Barkley constitutes a "racial hate crime".

Barkley, 23, was punched in a Liverpool bar last weekend in what his lawyer described as an "unprovoked attack".

In an article on Friday, Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie compared Barkley - who has a grandfather born in Nigeria - to a "gorilla at the zoo".

Police confirmed they were investigating the "full circumstances".

MacKenzie targeted both England international Barkley and the city of Liverpool in the article - which has since been taken off The Sun website - saying:

Barkley is "one of our dimmest footballers", also calling him "thick".

His eyes make him "certain not only are the lights not on, there is definitely nobody at home", adding: "I get a similar feeling when seeing a gorilla at the zoo."

Men with similar "pay packets" in Liverpool are "drug dealers" and in prison.

Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson told BBC Sport he reported the article to the police for a "racial slur".

Speaking to BBC Sport, Anderson said: "Not only is it racist in a sense that he is of mixed-race descent, equally it's a racial stereotype of Liverpool. It is racist and prehistoric."

Anderson later tweeted to say he had reported the article to Merseyside Police and the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

Alongside the article, The Sun published adjoining pictures on their website with the caption "Could Everton's Ross Barkley represent the missing link between man and beast?" The picture was later removed.

MacKenzie was editor of The Sun when it published a front-page article headlined 'Hillsborough: The Truth' in the aftermath of the 1989 disaster at Sheffield Wednesday's football stadium.

The article claimed Liverpool fans were to blame for the tragedy, in which 96 people died. MacKenzie apologised in 2012.

Last year's landmark Hillsborough inquests recorded that the 96 fans were unlawfully killed and that Liverpool supporters at the FA Cup semi-final had played no role in causing the tragedy.

This Saturday, 15 April, marks the 28th anniversary of the disaster.

Burnley midfielder Joey Barton, who was an Everton youth player, tweeted: "Those comments about Ross Barkley, a young working-class lad, are disgusting. Then add in the fact he is mixed race! It becomes outrageous."

Former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore tweeted: "Implied racism at its finest."

A Sun spokesperson said: "Columnists are supposed to have strong opinions that provoke debate among the readers. However their views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper."

BBC Sport has contacted Everton and Barkley's representatives for comment.

 

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Pretty sure he's said and done worse whilst serving his masters. In any kind of decent society, the putrid bastard would be - at best - defrocked, discredited and destitute.

Perhaps now it's finally time for Murdoch's most rabid attack dog to be muzzled... permanently.

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37 minutes ago, WadeWilson said:

MacKenzie has been suspended, pending another whitewash an investigation.

Do they not have an editor? Did he sneak the article in when no one was looking?
 

What a joke. I don't think there was any racist intent towards Barkley but the scouse-baiting, again, on the eve of the Hillsborough anniversary is despicable and the paper absolutely revels in it. That's what they pay him for.

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I did think the racist angle was somewhat tenuous and yes, the 'man' is just a total shiterag as is the paper* he writes baits for. Just an offensive bawhawk of a creature. News Corp is a filthy and sinister corporation; I wouldn't pay for any of their tainted product at gunpoint.

I actually did not realise it was the anniversary of Hillsborough either until it was pointed out on this thread. Jamie is right: he and his paymasters know exactly what they are doing here.

 

*The Sun should have stayed dead but unfortunately there must be enough morons in the country still daft enough to buy the papers and subscribe to the websites etc. I mean, every time there is, for example, an IndyRef debate to be had, they write two separate, polar-opposite political opinion editorials for their papers either side of the border.

And some dummies even vote according to these editorials and lap the bullshit right up, I know that for fact because I have some in my own extended family.

Divide and conquer right enough.

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1 hour ago, gazza27 said:

Surely this goes to an editor before it goes in the paper for the public to see?

Whether it went before the editor-in-chief himself or not, it would definitely have been seen by several pairs of eyes on the editorial staff before it went to print. MacKenzie is filth and he deserves everything he gets but the paper suspending him as if he's solely responsible is a joke. The only way Murdoch will ever learn is if decent people stop buying the open sewer he calls a newspaper.

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Saying he Gorilla bit could be deemed racist, but only if he knew Barkley was mixed-race. But saying his views on Scousers are racist is fucking ridiculous! Since when have Scousers been a race? I'll have to ask my Scouse wife. If Scouse is a race, then I'd love to know who facilitated the Cockney genocide of my people! FFS... 

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1 hour ago, East London Loyal said:

Saying he Gorilla bit could be deemed racist, but only if he knew Barkley was mixed-race. But saying his views on Scousers are racist is fucking ridiculous! Since when have Scousers been a race? I'll have to ask my Scouse wife. If Scouse is a race, then I'd love to know who facilitated the Cockney genocide of my people! FFS... 

The sun has previously published articles mentioning Barkleys heritage , so if they didn't know they should have they've run stories  .

The Scouse stuff is the kind of stuff you'd expect from someone in a boozer not in a national newspaper , it's not racist obviously,  not at all  but it is complete shite. Im not going to cry about it but the writer should be embarrassed. The reality is  that article by that bloke the day before the Hillsborough anniversary it's either deliberate or horrendous timing .

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1 hour ago, scouseblue said:

The sun has previously published articles mentioning Barkleys heritage , so if they didn't know they should have they've run stories  .

The Scouse stuff is the kind of stuff you'd expect from someone in a boozer not in a national newspaper , it's not racist obviously,  not at all  but it is complete shite. Im not going to cry about it but the writer should be embarrassed. The reality is  that article by that bloke the day before the Hillsborough anniversary it's either deliberate or horrendous timing .

Stuff the idiot writer and even stupider Editor, it's the public I'm concerned with. After all the crap the red tops print, specifically The Sun, there are still brain dead tools buying it.

I realised when I was 15 what a two-bob paper it was and only ever bought it for Dear Deardrie and Zoe, 25 from London, who was 25 for years! 

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Sounds like a load of PC Scouse victimhood shite as usual.

 

How anycunt could know that the twat had a black grandfather is laughable,  and therefore the playing of the race card  for all it was worth is actually the racist part here. 

So in fact, fuck the wankers doing this, probably a bunch of leftist shitebag scousers anyway. Cunts that they are. Including that Derek Hatton. The scouse hard left were and remain one of the worst of the whole lot of them.

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2 minutes ago, Helicopter Sundae said:

Sounds like a load of PC Scouse victimhood shite as usual.

 

How anycunt could know that the twat had a black grandfather is laughable,  and therefore the playing of the race card  for all it was worth is actually the racist part here. 

So in fact, fuck the wankers doing this, probably a bunch of leftist shitebag scousers anyway. Cunts that they are. Including that Derek Hatton. The scouse hard left were and remain one of the worst of the whole lot of them.

:matron:

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3 hours ago, Helicopter Sundae said:

Sounds like a load of PC Scouse victimhood shite as usual.

 

How anycunt could know that the twat had a black grandfather is laughable,  and therefore the playing of the race card  for all it was worth is actually the racist part here. 

So in fact, fuck the wankers doing this, probably a bunch of leftist shitebag scousers anyway. Cunts that they are. Including that Derek Hatton. The scouse hard left were and remain one of the worst of the whole lot of them.

YNV4G.gif

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