AFC Apologises for Offensive Nickname

The AFC has apologised for an offensive term one of its writers used last week to describe the UAE national side on its official website, the-afc.com.

The website referred to the UAE national team as ‘Sand Monkeys’, rather than less controversial, more widely-used nicknames such as ‘Al Abyad’ or ‘The Whites’. An AFC writer reportedly used the offensive nickname after finding it on the UAE national team’s Wikipedia page.

The AFC wrote to the UAE football association to apologise for the mistake and has posted the following statement on its official website:

“The AFC apologises for an editorial mistake in which the UAE National Team was inadvertently referred to by an inaccurate nickname on the AFC’s official website www.the-afc.com in the article ‘UAE to take cautious approach’ dated 12 October 2012.

The error, which was mainly because of referral to a popular web-based encyclopedia by the concerned Editor, was corrected immediately after it was noticed. The AFC would like to apologise for any hurt this might have caused to the UAE Football Association and UAE football fans.” {jcomments on}