Love Ireland: Mocking Keane's accent was done in good humour

By Sherna Noah

The UK’s TV watchdog, Ofcom, has assessed complaints that football pundit Ian Wright mocked Roy Keane’s accent and said that the “exchange was intended in good humour”.

Viewers complained about former England striker Wright on ITV’s World Cup Live coverage of the England versus Croatia game.

Wright mocked how ex-Republic of Ireland midfielder Keane pronounced the word ‘final’.

Interpreter for the non-English, Roy Keane explains to Ian Wright why he might have been premature making plans for the final pic.twitter.com/mMeRNRFqf0

— Paul Macdonald (@PaulMacdFC) July 11, 2018

Ofcom assessed the complaints but decided not to launch an investigation.

"We carefully assessed complaints from viewers who objected to one pundit imitating another’s accent,” it said.

However, we found the exchange was intended in good humour.

Ofcom also assessed but decided not to investigate complaints about Love Island, including bad language, which it said was properly obscured by bleeping. It also dismissed complaints about the emotional welfare of contestant Laura within her relationship with Jack, which it said was “within the expectations of the audience considering the established format” of the ITV2 programme.