Calls continue for the owner of England’s Wigan Athletic Football Club, Dave Whelan, to sell the team because of his ant-Semitic rants, this in spite of his recent apology.
Whelan also made disparaging remarks about Chinese, saying that he did not think that there was anything wrong with using the word “chink.”
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The 77 year old evoked memories of the recent controversies that revolved around the racist ranting of the former owner of the Loa Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling who was forced to sell that team because of them.
Whelan’s comments included the following:
“Jewish people chase money more than everybody else.”
“The Jews don’t like losing money. Nobody likes losing money.
“It’s telling the truth. Jewish people love money, English people love money; we all love money.”
“Nothing like a Jew that sees money slipping through his fingers.”
In an attempt to apologize Whelan said: “If I have upset one person, I apologies; All I was trying to say was that Jewish people are very similar to the English people in the desire to work hard and get money; I didn’t think I did anything wrong in that.”
But the Board of Deputies of British Jews has rejected the apology describing it as halfhearted.
The organization’s vice-president Jonathan Arkush stated, “Wigan chair Dave Whelan’s comments about Jews are outrageous and offensive, and bring the club and the game in to disrepute. His half-hearted apology does not go far enough.”
“You cannot insult a whole group of people, and then say: ‘I would never insult them, ’ and hope that’s OK. We need to see a proper apology and full recognition of the offence caused. Whelan, in his role as chair of a football club, has a responsibility to set the tone for both his players and supporters.”
Arkush promised to take the matter to England’s Football Association.
Wigan Athletic Football Club is an English professional soccer team in Manchester which competes in England’s second tier league.
