Tracey Crouch, the sports minister, has said Tyson Fury needs to remember that he is a role model, amid calls for the boxer to be kicked off the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year shortlist because of allegations of homophobia and sexism.
Fury, who defeated Wladimir Klitschko to become WBA and WBO world heavyweight champion last month, has been accused of comparing homosexuality to paedophilia. Fury was also filmed saying that Jessica Ennis-Hill “looks quite fit when she’s got a dress on” and that a woman’s best place “is in the kitchen and on her back”.
More than 138,000 people have signed a petition on the change.org website demanding Fury be removed from the 12-person shortlist for Spoty, the winner of which is due to be announced in the live programme on Sunday.
Asked what she would say to Fury if he won the public vote, Crouch told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I would remind him that everybody who is involved in sport, whether it is the person who runs the line at a grassroots football match at the weekend right up to the professionals and the elite sportsmen, they are role models for young people in this country and they should always remember that.”
The BBC event, which is being staged in Belfast, will be picketed by LGBT and feminist groups. Tony Hall, the BBC director general, told MPs that the organisation is completely at odds with what Tyson Fury has said” and that he hoped the public “will vote and make their views known”, but that Fury would remain on the shortlist.
