Everton have joined Liverpool in banning The Sun newspaper from their premises in light of columnist Kelvin MacKenzie’s appalling hatchet job on Ross Barkley published on Friday.
MacKenzie branded the Toffees midfielder as one of England’s “dimmest” footballers and likened his “lack of reflection” to that of “a gorilla in a zoo”, while an accompanying caption referred to him as “the missing link between man and beast”.
More diabolically reprehensible, consciously offensive tripe from Kelvin McKenzie, who is paid £300k a year to knock this shit out… pic.twitter.com/fJDbzAwfOd
— Who Ate All The Pies (@waatpies) April 14, 2017
Given that Barkley has Nigerian ancestry, the hateful article – published on the eve of the Hillsborough anniversary – was deemed a racist slur, with Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson reporting to both the police and the Independent Press Standards Organisation as such.
MacKenzie was duly suspended by the tabloid, who once again issued a grovelling apology despite having presumably checked, double-checked and then triple-checked before deciding to publish his vile column in the first place.
Regardless, Everton have today issued a statement that, just as their Liverpudlian rivals did back in February, the club have hereby banned The Sun from Goodison Park, their Finch Farm training ground and all other areas of operation…
Club Statement: pic.twitter.com/xDkptbbamk
— Everton (@Everton) April 15, 2017
And not before time.