Tipster banned by ESPN AFL footy competition
International mega sports media company ESPN has removed a participant in its AFL footy tips competition who had registered his screen name “Burnthejews” and has banned the person from reregistering.
The company acted swiftly when this user name was brought to its attention.
A spokesperson for ESPN told J-Wire: “A footytips user created an account name that violated our rules. The language used is offensive and unacceptable, does not reflect our values and has no place on our site.
While we do have significant systems in place to prevent the use of profane, bigoted and offensive language, in this case they did not catch it early enough and we are sorry. As soon as we became aware, the accounts were immediately removed from our site and the users have been blocked from re-registering.”
Peter Wertheim, the co-ceo of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told J-Wire: “As a leading global sports media company, ESPN reaches audiences in virtually every country in the world.
It is therefore especially important that it sets an appropriate standard of zero tolerance for racism in sports. Of the many thousands of people who have joined ESPN as a tipster, one of them sank to the lowest moral level by adopting an antisemitic online pseudonym.
ESPN is to be commended for taking prompt action to bar that person permanently from its platform.”
