Following some extremely inflammatory comments about the ongoing child abuse scandal in football, darts pundit Eric Bristow was relieved of his duties by Sky Sports.
The five-time World darts champion took to Twitter on Monday night claiming footballers were 'wimps' for not returning to confront their abusers in later life, in an extraordinary rant which has since been deleted.
The 59-year-old appeared on Good Morning Britain this morning to address his comments, later releasing the following statement on his Twitter account:
ERIC BRISTOW STATEMENT pic.twitter.com/HhxEkEOzVr
— Eric Bristow MBE (@ericbristow) November 30, 2016
Bristow explains in the statement that he doesn't employ PR people to run his social accounts "as some do", acknowledging that his comments were poorly worded and offended many people, without directly apologising.
He did state that money earned during interviews in the coming weeks would be donated to charity, but this was on the back of his manager requesting that the BBC pay a £5,000 fee for the interview (the BBC declined to do so).
Eric Bristow's manager asked BBC for £5000 (+VAT) when asked if his client would discuss his tweets about the survivors of child sex abuse.
— Richard Conway (@richard_conway) November 30, 2016
BBC declined to pay Bristow this or any fee. He has since deleted the tweets.
— Richard Conway (@richard_conway) November 30, 2016
Receiving questions about this. So, to be clear, there was no mention of £5000 going to charity when BBC asked Bristow's manager for comment
— Richard Conway (@richard_conway) November 30, 2016
