BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL
The sports personality of the year 2015 will had an extra edge to it when aired tonight for more reasons than the inclusion of the unpredictable Tyson Fury who has inadvertently courted controversy with his comments on Homosexuality and women, apologized if his comments offending anybody, saying this was not his aim, and said his words are ”just very tongue in cheek”, adding ”it is all fun and games too me, I am not a very serious person. It’s all happy go lucky with Tyson Fury”.
Fury, whose comments has understandably robbed people the wrong way, to the extent that a petition of over 130,000 asking for him to be dropped from the list, was also the subject of a protest at Belfast where the annual event was taking place. Michael Dugher-the shadow secretary- led calls for the unlikely new heavyweight champion’s exclusion from the list. Add to this the fact that the BBC director, Jason Hall, was somewhat summoned before a committee of MP’s to explain why he would not drop Fury from the bunch, and it becomes clear how serious the reaction to his comments has been.
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It is important to state that the official stance of the BBC to keep Fury on the list was actually correct. Their reasoned explanation that the list is reflective of sporting achievement as opposed to the endorsing of the personal views of any of the nominees was
indeed defensible. However, Fury did not retract his statement, but instead only apologised if his comments offended anyone. His comments not to be a serious person, did not bode well for his image in any sense of appeasing his critics and several detractors.
HUMAN RIGHT
We must get one thing right, and that is that Fury is entitled to his opinion, however incompatible they are with popular culture. Society is equally entitled to scrutinize the basis of anybody’s views, and utter pronouncements of criticism where deemed fit. Any society that suppresses the rights of an individual to exercise their human right of freedom of expression and freedom of opinion, becomes not only unacceptably oppressive, but also effectively begins to contradict the principles of tolerance and equality of treatment which they purport to uphold. When society is faced with outspoken individuals with controversial views like that of Tyson Fury, the most appropriate response is to either ignore those views or to challenge them. Any inclination to totally marginalise the individual may tacitly amount to denying them a right to have an independent view. Rather, the individual should be challenged, and the basis of his views scrutinized. Fury’s transgression cannot purely be his views on same sex marriage or the place of women, rather it is his propensity to recklessly present offensive views.
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INTERVIEW
Earlier in the week, it emerged that a number of BBC presenters, declined the role of interviewing Tyson Fury for the sports personality of the year. Clearly, those presenters are emotive about Fury’s comments and will not even want share any sort of pleasantries with him. Claire Balding, who herself is gay, would have unsurprisingly felt very offended by his comments. Her colleagues would intuitively want to show their allegiance to her. Fury’s sexist comments would also have further offended them all. So, the role of interviewing Fury has now fallen on Gary Lineka.
You see, the advantage of having Fury interviewed would have been great because it gives the interviewer an opportunity to scrutinise not only his views, but the reason he chose to express them at the time he did, and the way he did. The Human Rights Acts entitles each and every one of us to freedom of thought, opinion, expression , but the crucial thing is always the rational and coherent basis of any view held, and a contextual justification for its expression. Fury is a very controversial character who speaks his mind, but who is also very imprudent and lacks reasonable guidance. His sexist comments were at best naive and backward. His comments drawing a connection between hyomosexuality and paedophilia, purportedly on religious convictions, was recklessly and insenstitvely presented. The award’s host, Gary Lineka, speared Fury the task of explaining the parallel he had drawn between Homosexuality and Paedophilia, and in particular, his ignorant sexist comments about women, which riled many feminist groups and women of strong awareness of self. Perhaps, the BBC presenter wisely wanted to avoid the risk of Fury further offending people by poorly explaining or attempting to justify his comments.
Tyson Fury is potentially a charismatic individual, with a true larger than life personality. However, he lacks etiquette, guidance, and appeal in the way he expresses himself. The boxing community need to apply a concerted effort to shape him up and give the sport of boxing more dignity, not bring it to disrepute.
EXPLANATION
When eye of media contacted BBC sports for an explanation as to why a number of their presenters had opted not to interview Tyson Fury rather than challenge him, their representatives made reference to their official comment in relation to why he was included in the short list but did not directly address the question directly. Quite clearly, their refusal to interview him is an expression of their strong resentment of what he represents, and the sports personality of the year awards might not be the most ideal forum to engage in what could erupt into a bot of a debate between Fury and the interviewer. Nevertheless, nothing stops the BBC from ingeniously tackling him on the show, but that would have been a departure from the usual amiable environment of the celebratory awards conducted in the height of the festive period.
Upon Fury’s arrival at the awards with his team, his handlers initially expressed his wishes for him not to have any interviews at all for the sports personality of the year, thereby easing any awkwardness of feeling that may have surrounded his interview. However, he eventually changed his mind, though seemed surprised at the predictable question asked in relation to his recent fall out with the public in relation to the controversy that resulted from his words, by asking twice for the question to be repeated. His apology is accepted, but he needs careful guidance on how he presents his views.
With or without Fury’s comments, he would always have been an unlikely winner of the awards, though one never knows how different his chances may have been in the absence of his comments. The likes of the world championship heptathlon gold medal winner, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Mo Farah who achieved a treble double in distance running having won gold in both 5,000 meters and 10,000m at two world championships(including the Olympics), and the long jump world champion, Greg Rutherford, already dampened Fury’s chances from the beginning. Also, last year’s winner of the award, Lewis Hamilton, was again shortlisted following his successful defence of his Formula One world title.
Such is the formidable list of achievers Fury would have had to contend with anyway, but the controversy that has erupted from his comments has somewhat made him the highlight of the prestigious annual event. It will be interesting to see what transpires when Fury is interviewed.
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