The mixup of Bryan and Frank is less of what I'm taking issue with - after all there hasn't been a pattern of that and we can chalk that one up to a one-time dumb mistake. I don't think the article you shared is much an excuse though - we are talking about proffesional football producers/commentators who have spent a career exposed to different looking people.
I will, however, stand by my point that the continued butchering of African names is "borderline racist." The extent to which older, white, worldly, educated, professional, football commentators, continually (and seemingly without care) mispronounce African names is so notable that it has been the subject of journalism. The reason it verges on discrimination is because it's a known problem they don't care to fix. I'm thinking specifically of the announcer from a few weeks back (Bournemouth?) who said Bryan's name about twenty different ways (seriously, the producer couldn't train him on how to say it during the half?).
To be honest Beelieve!, I'm very surprised by the folks on here who are having such a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that it might be just a tad bit racist. Some of the responses I got here sound really -gasp- American, to me.
www.bbc.co.uk
