Sexist? Just in private, please

It’s been two weeks since the Sky Sports commentators Andy Gray and Richard Keys were forced off our screens in a row over sexism. All those who zealously chanted Sky’s new motto “there’s no room for sexism in football” will have to reconsider that statement as the pair have taken over a slot at Talk Sport Radio.

The two men were loved and watched on Sky Sports and clearly had a responsibility to espouse certain values. However, does it matter if Gray and Keys actually embody those particular values if these have no real impact on their abilities as commentators? One of the reasons the whole affair was surprising was because their on-screen personas were so convincing. Yet by the same token it is naive to imagine that simply because someone happens to be in the public eye, they should embody every moral virtue in perfection in their intimacy.

What is freedom of opinion worth if it does not allow two men to privately share a view simply because that view is not commonly accepted? These opinions are certainly socially detrimental and everything should be done to ensure future generations are free from such beliefs.

Yet there is an aspect of the whole affair that the majority of people commenting on this issue do not appreciate. It is what Richard Keys was referring to when he mentioned “dark forces at work”, pointing at Sky TV’s role. The recordings which made their way to the _Sun_ website (incidentally another Murdoch-owned company) were released by Sky itself. It was also Sky which brought a host of other unaired recordings to light in the ensuing days. Each individual account of sexism would not have been enough to justify firing Andy Gray or the resignation of Richard Keys but the bombardment of twenty years of indiscretions in the course of a single week did the trick nicely.

Rather than “political correctness gone mad”, this is “political correctness being used by a few scheming businessmen to manipulate the internal politics at Sky Sports”.

All in all the only change that this has brought in terms of sex equality is a new layer of fear for all those in the public eye. I do sympathise with Andy Gray and Richard Keys, not with their opinions obviously, because they are victims here as much as anyone else. Less so with Sky TV.