Dwight McNeil has hit back at Darren Bent’s ‘completely disrespectful’ tweet which insinuated that Burnley had ‘no black players’ in their squad following their 5-0 defeat at Manchester City on Monday.
Scenes in the lead-up to the Etihad match were marred by a plane carrying a ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ banner over the stadium just moments after all 22 players took a knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Burnley issued an official statement condemning the banner and vowed to issue lifetime bans to those responsible for organising the flyover.
However, ex-England striker Bent responded on Twitter that he thought it was ‘strange considering Burnley have NO black players in there [sic] squad at all.’
Shortly after the Premier League clash, Burnley midfielder McNeil – who played all 90 minutes of the match – contested Bent’s tweet, considering he is in fact a player of BAME origin with a flack father.
‘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,’ the England Under-21 international said.
Aaron Lennon, who Bent played with at both club and international level with Tottenham and England, is another BAME player on Burnley’s books.
The Clarets’ official account retweeted McNeil’s response before Bent deleted his comment.
Burnley captain Ben Mee used his post-match interview with Sky Sports to stressed that the club were ‘ashamed’ to be connected with the ’embarrassing’ banner.
‘I’m ashamed and embarrassed that a small number of our hands have decided to fly that around the stadium,’ Mee said.
‘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.’
Burnley head coach Sean Dyche echoed Mee’s comments as he condemned the ‘unacceptable’ actions of those involved.
‘I heard a plane buzzing about and I didn’t know what it was about until after the game when one of the players mentioned on his phone about it and said, “Gaffa, we’ve got to go out and say something,’ Dyche told Burnley’s official website.
‘I said, “Absolutely”. It’s unacceptable. You don’t want that attributed to the whole town and the people or to the club and it is unacceptable.
‘I can only apologise as manager of the club. Obviously it’s nothing to do with me or the club but it’s clearly unacceptable.’
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