Sky Sports issued a ful­some apol­o­gy over the inac­cu­rate trans­la­tion of their inter­view with Alfre­do More­los.

The broad­cast­er aired the inter­view on their net­work and social media chan­nels ear­li­er this week, with footage of More­los speak­ing in his native Span­ish tongue sup­port­ed by Eng­lish sub­ti­tles.

In one sec­tion, the Rangers strik­er was quot­ed as say­ing he was tar­get­ed by ‘racist words’ from Celtic fans fol­low­ing his red card in the Old Firm match on Decem­ber 29.

Sky Sports apol­o­gised over inac­cu­rate trans­la­tion of Rangers’ Alfre­do More­los in an inter­view

In the Sky Sports sub­ti­tles he is said to have accused Celtic sup­port­ers of racist behav­iour

How­ev­er, the Park­head club demand­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion after ques­tions were wide­ly raised about the verac­i­ty of the trans­la­tion – with the inter­view then pulled from all Sky plat­forms. It’s claimed the trans­la­tion was arranged by Sky Sports and the play­er’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Sky have now said sor­ry to Rangers, Celtic, More­los and fans of the Park­head club for the botched job that over­shad­owed the first major UK tele­vi­sion inter­view the 23-year-old had under­tak­en since arriv­ing in Scot­land in 2017. It could yet lead to a probe by Ofcom after the com­mu­ni­ca­tions reg­u­la­tor received almost 30 com­plaints.

The apol­o­gy appeared on the Sky Sports web­site, along with a new tran­script from a ‘pro­fes­sion­al­ly ver­i­fied trans­la­tion.’

The state­ment read: ‘We have iden­ti­fied inac­cu­ra­cies in the trans­la­tion of Sky Sports News’ inter­view with Alfre­do More­los. We apol­o­gise to both Celtic and Rangers foot­ball clubs as well as Alfre­do More­los for the issues caused by these errors.

‘After numer­ous steps under­tak­en by Sky to ver­i­fy the inter­view thor­ough­ly we can be clear that at no point did More­los allege that any racial abuse was direct­ed at him by Celtic sup­port­ers in the inter­view. We apol­o­gise to the sup­port­ers of Celtic Foot­ball Club for this seri­ous error.

‘We are review­ing our pro­ce­dures for trans­lat­ed inter­views to ensure this does not occur in future.’

Sky have since pulled the orig­i­nal inter­view down and apol­o­gised for the wrong trans­la­tions

An Ofcom spokesper­son con­firmed 29 com­plaints and said: ‘We are assess­ing the com­plaints against our broad­cast­ing rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to inves­ti­gate.’

Address­ing his send­ing off at Park­head and the ‘cut-throat’ ges­ture made as he left the field, More­los is now quot­ed by Sky as say­ing: ‘In the game against Celtic we were win­ning 2–1, a nor­mal match… and, I don’t know, I fell over, I was­n’t try­ing to get a penal­ty, but the ref decid­ed to send me off and, well, I accept that, it’s his deci­sion.

‘But my ges­ture was just a way of say­ing it’s all over, the game was fin­ished any­way, there were only 30 sec­onds left. They start­ed insult­ing me and shout­ing at me , but that ges­ture only meant that the game was over.’