Matt Le Tissier hits out at Sky for Soccer Saturday sacking over BLM badge and Covid

Matt Le Tissier believes Sky’s insistence on ‘diversity and inclusion’ and his reluctance to wear a Black Lives Matter badge on-air led to his resignation from Soccer Saturday.

The former Premier League star, 54, saw his 15-year association with the broadcaster end in August 2020.

Le Tissier did wear a BLM badge on Sky shows, but said at the time that he “couldn’t support” the movement’s aims to discourage police and end capitalism.

He also made headlines for his controversial views on the Covid-19 pandemic and shared conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine on social media.

Speaking William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan show, Le Tissier said he lost his job at Sky as a result of his outspoken views.

He said, ‘What drove the changes? After Comcast bought Sky, things changed overnight. Suddenly it was diversity and inclusion and all that stuff. I think we kind of saw it coming.

“It was partly to do with my opinion of Black Lives Matter and not wearing the badge on Sky. I don’t think that went down very well.

“I was quite critical of the mainstream media on my social media.”

When asked by Jordan why he didn’t want to wear a BLM badge, the Southampton legend replied: ‘If you think wearing a badge like that will change the mind of the small minority of people in this country. are racist, you live in cloud cuckoo land.

“Because the people who are racist, and I think in my opinion there is a very small minority of people in this country who are racist.

“I think the majority of people in this country are good people and don’t see skin color, and I think it gets better with every generation. , I’ve now seen a huge shift from my generation to my daughter’s generation in how they see people and it keeps getting better.

“I don’t think we talk positively about that often enough. So that was one of the reasons why they didn’t like me very much.’

Le Tissier used his platform on Twitter to spread covid-19 conspiracy theories, which he says also led to his resignation from Soccer Saturday.

“I don’t follow the line if I think it’s not right, I won’t and I never have,” he said.

“I lost my job because of that. I kind of miss that because I miss working with my friends, we had really good camaraderie.

‘Fortunately we still meet occasionally, we do a country expert throughout the country.

“I do miss them – I never woke up on a Saturday morning and thought ‘oh god, I have to go to work today’.” It was fun, it was great.

“So I miss that, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I feel like a much freer person who doesn’t have to stay on a leash.

“I’m okay with the consequences. No self-harm at all. I have no regrets, no regrets whatsoever.

“I was canceled for a few speeches after dinner because some people got a little upset that I was allowed to talk about football with them.

‘This is the world we live in. My after dinner speeches, I talk about football and my media career, I don’t get anywhere else, but I get fired from these jobs because I’m a conspiracy theorist. that’s actually just outside the pale.’

Le Tissier was criticized by his social media followers last year when he appeared to suggest that the media had lied about the horrors of the war in Ukraine.

He retweeted – and later deleted – a post from an account called Unity News Net, which claimed stories about the massacre of civilians in Bucha had been falsified.

“The point of that tweet was to say that in times of war, both sides will run propaganda and if you don’t believe that then you’re kind of an idiot,” he said.

“I could have made the point differently and I apologize and have deleted the tweet.

“In an adult society you have to hold your hands up and say ‘this is what I meant’ and I’m sorry, let’s move on.”