Lord Sugar called out for "racist" tweet comparing Senegal World Cup team to "guys from the beach in Marbella" selling sunglasses

In a now-deleted tweet, the businessman posted an image of Senegalese players (but not actually from Tuesday's match), with a blanket and rows of sunglasses and handbags photoshopped below it. He wrote: "I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella. Multi-tasking resourceful chaps."

There was an immediate backlash...

After around 20 minutes, Lord Sugar tweeted: "Just been reading the reaction to my funny tweet about the guy on the beach in Marbella. Seems it has been interpreted in the wrong way as offensive by a few people. Frankly I cant see that I think it's funny. But I will pull it down if you insist."

But after deleting the original, he carried on lashing out at critics. When BBC World News anchor Babita Sharma tweeted: "A shocking, vile tweet that you take a screen grab of because you know it will soon be deleted," he responded: "If it is so vile why have you retweeted it. You make me sick."

As his team presumably went into crisis management mode, Lord Sugar deleted his responses – and replaced them with a very different message: "I misjudged me earlier tweet. It was in no way intended to cause offence, and clearly my attempt at humour has backfired. I have deleted the tweet and am very sorry."

But not everyone is convinced...

In a statement, the BBC said: "Lord Sugar has acknowledged this was a seriously misjudged tweet, and he’s in no doubt about our view on this. It’s right he’s apologised unreservedly."

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