The Mayor of Liverpool has called on Everton FC to ban The Sun newspaper.
Joe Anderson made the call after the reviled paper’s former editor Kelvin Mackenzie aimed a jibe at the city ahead of the 28th anniversary of Hillsborough.
Mackenzie made disparaging comments about the recent and unprovoked attack on Blues midfielder Ross Barkley in a Liverpool city centre bar last weekend.
The 70-year-old likened Barkley, who is of Nigerian heritage, to ‘seeing a gorilla at the zoo’ in his controversial remarks about the England international.
A picture of the Everton player was juxtaposed alongside a gorilla in Mackenzie’s piece.
He also claimed Barkley was ‘thick’, and therefore ‘an attractive catch in the Liverpool area’, claiming only drug dealers earned as much as his £60,000 per week salary.
Mackenzie sanctioned the Sun’s infamous front page headline, ‘The Truth’, in which they accused Liverpool fans of stealing from the deceased in the 1989 tragedy.
Liverpool recently banned the newspaper from attending games at Anfield and press conferences at its Melwood training ground over its historical coverage.
And Mayor Anderson has implored the Everton hierarchy to follow suit in a post aimed at their official Twitter account on the eve of the Hillsborough anniversary.
.@Everton 😱Your lack of action in banning the S*n from your press conferences is a smack in the face to our City,see below&act now #JFT96💙❤️ pic.twitter.com/wHFi28RLk5
— Joe Anderson (@mayor_anderson) 14 April 2017
He wrote “Your lack of action in banning the S*n from your press conferences is a smack in the face to our City,see below&act now.”
Anderson’s comments were echoed by Everton legend Neville Southall.
He said: “Everton FC show some class and some balls.
“Ban the Sun.”
Former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore, who quit his role at TalkSport over the Sun’s connection to the radio station, also joined the condemnation of the paper.
He wrote: “Verified S** column by Kelvin MacKenzie today. Implied racism at its finest.”
“Time to boycott sponsors and associated companies.”