A BBC presenter has neatly summed up the controversy surrounding Tyson Fury’s inclusion on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist – in unusually frank style.
More than 90,000 people have signed a petition to have the boxer removed from the running over offensive comments he was reported as making regarding gay people, abortion and fellow shortlisted athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill.
Clive Myrie, a 27-year veteran of the BBC, was discussing the issue on his The Papers programme at 11.30pm on Monday night with the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope and political commentator Miranda Green.
And after glancing down at his watch to confirm that “it’s after the watershed”, Myrie said: “You cannot be a d******* and win Sports Personality of the Year.”
Smiling, the presenter hastened to add that he might be considered as such by “those people signing this petition”.
Fury was crowned heavyweight champion of the world after beating Wladimir Klitschko in a major sporting upset in Munich a week ago.
It led to him being included on the BBC Spoty shortlist alongside the likes of British athletes Jessica Ennis-Hill, Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford.
Myrie conceded that Fury was an “amazing sportsman”. But he said: “Having heard him interviewed, he seems to be confusing having ‘a personality’ with having ‘a good personality’.”
A spokeswoman for the BBC told The Independent: "We apologise to any viewers who were offended by the language Clive Myrie used during a discussion on the late night paper review on the News Channel.”
Fury has said he believes he “should” win the prestigious annual award, whose former holders include Lewis Hamilton, Andy Murray, Bradley Wiggins and – going further back – the likes of Sebastian Coe, Sir Bobby Moore and Princess Anne.
But when asked in an interview about his fellow nominee Ennis-Hill, he said: “That’s the runner isn’t it? I think she's good, she's won quite a few medals for Britain, she slaps up good as well, when she's got a dress on she looks quite fit.”
The controversy over Fury’s divisive views began with an interview with the Mail on Sunday, in which the boxer reportedly compared homosexuality and abortion to paedophilia.
“There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home,” he was quoted as saying. "One of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other one’s paedophilia. Who would have thought in the 50s and 60s that those first two would be legalised?”
