Nevin backtracks- my comments were lost in translation

Pat Nevin has issued a grovelling apology to Cesc Fabregas claiming that his comments were lost in translation!

Last week on BBC Radio the former Chelsea winger claimed that it was Fabregas who had said that he’d rather lose than win for Jose Mourinho.

That drew an angry response from the Fabregas camp and a threat to sue Nevin for damages. On Saturday the Catalan midfielder was booed by large sections of the Chelsea support unhappy at his role in Mourinho’s departure.

In a column for the Chelsea website Nevin explains: “During an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme I asked, in passing while talking about some other recent happenings at the club, if the player who said the phrase six weeks ago: ‘I would rather lose than play for Jose,’ had been outed in the press as Cesc?

“I absolutely wasn’t having a go at Cesc, but asking the question, as the reporter I was talking to was the one who originally broke that story. Basically I thought that this had been the press line in the following days back then. He replied, ‘No comment’. Even the newspaper put a question mark at the end of my sentence!

“Cesc denied it all at the time of course (honestly as it turns out!) and odd though it may sound I couldn’t have cared less anyway. The reason I wasn’t that bothered was because the BBC reporter (a man I like and admire I may add) had made it perfectly clear that it was something said in the heat of the moment, in a fit of anger and it certainly did not mean that player wasn’t going to try for the team really.

“When a story appeared in one of the newspapers this Saturday it was reported as if I was deliberately outing Cesc. Now whether it was mischievous on the newspaper’s part for deliberately misunderstanding me or whether I was not clear enough in what I was saying and the fault was thus partially mine, it doesn’t matter (I accept my accent, diction and even clarity of meaning aren’t always picked up perfectly, especially by some southern ears).

“In short, I did not mean to have a go at Cesc in any way at all; I was merely asking a question.”