WENTWORTH, United Kingdom: George O’Grady, the chief executive of the European Tour, has apologised for using the phrase “coloured athletes” as the Sergio Garcia race row rumbled on.
Spain’s Garcia returned to action at the European PGA Championship yesterday, just two days after causing a racism uproar by revealing he would serve fried chicken at dinner to Tiger Woods with whom he has been locked in a long-running, bitter feud.
Fried chicken is stereotypically associated with black people in the American deep south.
But even that row was overshadowed when O’Grady told a television interviewer that some of the Spaniard’s best friends are “coloured athletes”.
“I deeply regret using an inappropriate word in a live interview for which I unreservedly apologise,” O’Grady said in a statement.
AFP
