Dwight McNeil has hit out at Darren Bent after he called the ‘White Lives Matter’ banner “strange”.

A plane was flown over Manchester City’s game with Burnley and showed the offensive banner which has been widely condemned.

But Bent said on social media that he thought it was

strange considering Burnley have NO black players in there squad at all.

Clarets star McNeil, whose father is black, has responded by calling the statement “completely disrespecful”.

He said: “As a player of BAME origin, I find Darren Bent’s comments tonight completely disrespectful, especially to my father, who is black and who has been a huge influence in my life and helped make me the person I am proud to be.”

As a player of BAME origin, I find Darren Bent’s comments tonight completely disrespectful, especially to my father, who is black and who has been a huge influence in my life and helped make me the person I am proud to be. https://t.co/hp1tTGhy2j

— Dwight McNeil (@dwight_mcneil99) June 22, 2020

Burnley fan Jake Hepple has claimed responsibility for flying the offensive banner.

He shared a video of the incident on his Facebook page and has refused to apologise.

Hepple wrote:

I’d like to take this time to apologise .. TO ABSOLUTELY F ** NOBODY!

It’s now apparently racist to say white lives matter.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been embraced by the Premier League with players taking a knee before games in solidarity.

And Burnley captain Ben Mee came out after his side’s defeat and was quick to address the banner which he has called “embarrassing”.

He said on Sky Sports:

I’m ashamed and embarrassed that a small number of our hands have decided to fly that around the stadium.

They have completed the point. There’s a group of lads in there that is embarrassed to see that, they’ve missed the point of the whole thing we are trying to achieve and these people need to come into the 21st century and educate themselves.

It does not represent what the club is about, what the players are about and what the a majority of the fans are about, that’s for sure. It’s a small minority of people and I’m really upset that happened.
“Literally as we were coming out, we heard some whispers that it might happen, the club were trying to stop it. I hope it doesn’t happen again. We are ashamed and upset.

The club statement made it clear the perpetrators were not welcome at Turf Moor and would be banned for life if identified.

We wish to make it clear that those responsible are not welcome at Turf Moor,

it read.

This, in no way, represents what Burnley Football Club stands for and we will work fully with the authorities to identify those responsible and issue lifetime bans.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.