THE BBC has apologised for a radio show in which one of its pundits embarked on a rant about Rangers’ director of communications.
Sportsound was last night forced to apologise after former footballer and BBC regular Michael Stewart made several claims about Jim Traynor.
At the time of the rant, host Kenny McIntyre intervened to say the Rangers PR guru was not there to defend himself and that Stewart's views did not represent that of BBC Scotland.
But last night, with Stewart nowhere to be seen, McIntyre started the show with an apology to Traynor, saying the discussion was “not fair and balanced”.
READ MORE: BBC Sportsound's Michael Stewart rants about Rangers' Jim Traynor
He said: "Before we get to tonight's topics we apologise to James Traynor for the discussion on Sportsound last night.
"It was not fair and balanced and he did not have the opportunity to respond.
"On this occasion, we did not adhere to our editorial values and standards and we have reminded those concerned of their responsibility to follow our guidelines while working for the BBC."
For the rest of the show, the panel avoided any discussion on anything to do with Morelos, even though the story had moved on significantly.
The original debate centred on Monday’s Sky Sports interview with Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos in which he claimed to be subject to racism in Scotland.
Stewart accused Rangers, specifically Traynor, of using the story to distract from the weekend exclusive in the Sunday Mail which revealed Morelos to be the target of a private investigator hired by his wife.
Originally, it was reported elsewhere that an individual was caught tampering with Morelos’s car which led to many conspiracy theories being spun.
Stewart said it also led to him being targetted by certain fans, blaming him for the incident for being critical of the Colombian in the past.
He said: "Alfredo Morelos has done his first interview today with Sky Sports. It was filmed on Friday. Last week there was a story in the newspaper about somebody tampering with the brakes of his sports car. Now, who fed that line? Because it certainly wasn't the police ... and there was an interview set up and recorded on Friday which was released today that gets everyone distracted from talking about something else, which is a poor story, racism in Scotland. We don't want it. If there's evidence we condemn it.
"Last week somebody leaked a story about tampering with brakes, completely unfounded and what does it do? I get messages saying I'm complicit in attempted murder along with other people. Utter garbage. And that is what I find extremely disappointing, somebody stoking fires for their own personal gain.”
As a result of the discussion, Monday night’s show did not appear as a podcast or to listen to again.
Yesterday, Sky Sports removed the interview with Morelos after claims, including from a Celtic statement, that the translation was inaccurate.
Some supporters started to question the translation when it appeared that the subtitles linked Celtic fans to the racism he suffered even though, it is being claimed, Morelos did not say so in the audio.
Celtic have called for an investigation into the incident.
A statement on their website read: "Celtic Football Club has today asked Sky Sports to conduct an investigation into an interview broadcast yesterday, which accused Celtic supporters of racist behaviour.
"Translations provided to Celtic Football Club have shown inconsistencies between the words spoken during the interview broadcast and the subtitles used by Sky Sports.”
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