Wigan Chairman Banned for Making Racist Comments

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has been banned from all football-related activities after making racist comments about Jewish and Chinese people. The ban will last six-weeks.

The 78-year-old was also fined $78,000 (50,000 pounds) after accepting the English Football Association charge of racially-aggravated misconduct.

"It is clear that he himself is very upset by the words he used and he moved very quickly to apologize publicly, plead guilty and begin to make amends," the FA commission report said in an excerpt released by Wigan according to the New York Daily News.

The FA report added, according to the Mirror, "We are satisfied on the evidence before us that Mr. Whelan is not a racist. We are equally satisfied on the evidence before us that Mr. Whelan did not intend to cause any offence by his comments."

Whelan has also been warned about any future conduct and will have to take a mandatory education course. The chairman made offensive comments during a newspaper interview with the Guardian last month regarding his decision to appoint Malky Mackady as the second-tier club manager. Mackaday is being investigated for allegedly sending racist and anti-Semitic texts to a colleague when he was a manager for Cardiff.

When Whelan was asked about Mackaday's text, he stated, "I think Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else. I don't think that's offensive at all." The chairman also said that Mackady's comments about Chinese people were "nothing bad." In the interview, Whelan was quoted for referring to a Chinese restaurant as "chingalings" and using the word "chink."

Whelan has apologized for his comments, stating that he did not mean to offend anyone.