|
Malky Mackay has apologised for the discriminatory text messages he sent during his time as manager of Cardiff City. Mackay has come in for a wave of criticism after sharing what were reported to be racist, sexist and homophobic texts with former Cardiff head of recruitment Iain Moody, with the Football Association investigating a dossier submitted by the Bluebirds. The 42-year-old Scot told Sky Sports News HQ: "Out of 10,000 text messages in and out of someone's phone I sent three and that being the case, looking at them they are completely unacceptable, inappropriate and for that and for any offence I've caused I sincerely apologise for that. "That's something I did and there is no excuse for that.'' The League Managers' Association (LMA) has apologised after defending the controversial comments as "friendly text message banter," leading Cardiff to call on the organisation's chief executive Richard Bevan to resign. Mackay appeared set to become the new Crystal Palace manager earlier this week, but the scandal surrounding him emerged just as the Premier League club were understood to be readying his appointment. Palace are now looking elsewhere for their next boss. Mackay admitted sending the texts at the centre of the controversy, at a time when his position at Cardiff was under scrutiny, and acknowledged there could be no mitigation for what he did. He was sacked as manager of Cardiff in December last year after months of speculation surrounding his position, despite leading the club into the Premier League for the first time in their history. "I did it in a period where I was under immense pressure and stress in terms of the relationships that were possibly not going too well at my football club at the time,'' Mackay said. "But that doesn't excuse anything and was unacceptable. I'm a manager, I'm a leader of people and it should not have happened. But before all that and foremost, I'm a human being and I made a mistake. "I've been in a multi-cultural football environment for 20 years. I love British football and I am no racist, I am no sexist, I am no homophobe and I am no anti-Semitic, and the people that know me know that and I do understand that it's the people that don't know me that I've got to convince of that.'' While Mackay admitted his guilt to sending some of the texts on the phone in question, he said others that have been reported were received on the device. "Yeah, I've received some but the three that I've sent are the ones that I'm accountable for and I feel I shouldn't have sent them,'' he added. Mackay will now undergo diversity training. "It's certainly something I've been involved with, speaking to my union, about asking them about equality and diversity training and it's something I'll be going forward with,'' he said. When asked if he thought Bevan should step down, Mackay said: "No I don't, I absolutely don't. I think that if you ask every manager in this country and in most of football the amount of work that Rich Bevan and the LMA have done and the good work that they have done then you'll find he has been someone that has made a lot of good decisions and done a lot of good work.'' Mackay distanced himself from the use of the word "banter'', for which the LMA had already issued an apology on Friday morning, but he felt that apart from that mistake the initial LMA statement was fair. "I've certainly never used the word 'banter' and that is not something I personally feel that it was, but I think the overall statement was very, very accurate,'' Mackay said. "I agree that word is wrong and the LMA soon realised that and they've tried to rectify that today.''
|
