Don’t mention the racism- BBC Scotland censorship over Bill Copeland walk-out

Faced with the Bill Copeland story BBC Scotland were perfectly positioned to cover it in depth. 

The story was triggered by Eilidh Barbour a regular face and voice on the state broadcaster with many of the BBC Scotland sports staff and favoured pundits likely to have attended Sunday’s SFWA Awards Dinner. 

Racism and sexism were widely quoted to be part of Copeland’s side-splitting routine with a few ‘good natured gags’ aimed at Celtic’s Japanese players. Oh how some laughed out loud. 

The Daily Mail and Telegraph, titles that are unlikely to be described as lefty/woke sympathisers were both onto the story on Monday covering the key aspects- racism and sexism. 

Strangely BBC Scotland decided to downplay the accusations of racism. Only sexism was included in their news headline alongside an image of Barbour. 

Further into the story, in the third paragraph the BBC reported on claims that Copeland’s appearance was being described as ‘sexist, racist and homophobic’. 

In the summer of 2020 Gregory Campbell joined Tom English and the lads on Sportsound to discuss the SPFL clubs voting to decide the 2019/20 season based on average points per game.  

Last March BBC Scotland were at the forefront of claims against Ondrej Kudela of Slavia Prague.

BBC Scotland reports: 

An organisation representing Scottish sports writers has apologised after an awards event speech prompted a walkout.

TV presenter Eilidh Barbour was among guests who left Sunday’s Scottish Football Writers’ Association (SFWA) gala dinner in Glasgow in protest.

Ms Barbour tweeted that she had “never felt so unwelcome in the industry” while others have described the jokes as “sexist, racist and homophobic”.

The SFWA said it apologised to anyone “offended or upset” by the speech.