Fox Sports is busted for racist comments about Pakistanis in its coverage of the country’s match against Albo’s Prime Minister’s XI
- Term was seen on Fox Sports’ image early in the match
- Was quickly changed as soon as the error was discovered
- Australian star Usman Khawaja has suffered from blemish before
Fox Sports was caught making racist comments against Pakistanis as the country’s cricket team played the Australian Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra on Wednesday.
Instead of abbreviating the country’s name to ‘PAK’ as usual, the pay-TV channel used ‘PAK*’ to describe the tourists early on the first day of the match.
There is no suggestion that the word was deliberately broadcast by Fox employees, who quickly changed it to ‘PAK’ when the error was noticed.
‘Suit*’ has been used as a racial slur in Britain since the 1960s, when immigration from the country was at its peak.
Fox Sports quickly changed the bottom left image of viewers’ screens to ‘PAK’ as soon as the offending error (pictured) was discovered
The slur was aired during Pakistan’s match against the Prime Minister’s XI team on Wednesday (Photo, Anthony Albanese with team members before the game started)
Despite being an abbreviation of ‘Pakistan’, the word is often associated with racist abuse of Pakistanis.
In 2007, Prince Harry was investigated by the British Ministry of Defense and ordered to undergo anti-racist training for calling an army colleague “our little Pak* friend.”
And in 2018, Pakistan-born Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja revealed he was insulted by the parents of children he played against as a youngster.
Fans of the sport expressed their shock online when Fox’s use of the word was revealed.
“Let’s hope we don’t play Nigeria anytime soon,” one person wrote.
“Well we can’t do that… How can you put a known racist term on your image,” asked another.
Despite being an abbreviation of Pakistani, the slur has often been associated with racism since the 1960s
Pakistani-born Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja (pictured) is one of the sport’s many stars to be hit with the slur
The racist term is also not exclusively aimed at Pakistanis, but Indians, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans are also on the receiving end.
In 2010, former Indian opening batsman Aakash Chopra revealed that he was ‘constantly’ called the term by opponents while playing league matches in England.
“Many now believe that Pak* is an abbreviation of Pakistan, but that is not true,” he said.
“If you have a brown skin color, if you live anywhere in the Asian subcontinent, this term is used for racial abuse. Your name is Pak*, and no one likes it.’
And in March this year, England cricketer Tim Bresnan was accused of using the slur by calling his teammate Azeem Rafiq’s sister a ‘fit Pak*’.
Bresnan denied the accusation, which was raised at a hearing of the England Cricket Board’s cricket discipline committee as it investigated claims that he and other cricketers, including Test star Matthew Hoggard, had brought the game into disrepute by using racist language .