Ray Parlour slammed talkSPORT colleague Jermaine Jenas for giving a ‘pointless’ interview following his sacking from the BBC. In a bizarre scenario, Jenas’s departure from the BBC was confirmed while he was live on talkSPORT radio on Thursday evening.
The former Tottenham, Newcastle and England midfielder was axed by the broadcaster over alleged ‘inappropriate behaviour’. He was presenting a three-hour drive-time programme on talkSPORT while the news was announced, before agreeing to conduct an interview later in the evening.
Jenas confirmed that his lawyers were involved and insisted there are two sides to the story. But otherwise the 41-year-old said he could not comment on the allegations or reveal when he was informed of his sacking by the BBC. He shut down the interview after seeking clarification that he was still live on air.
The interview was then discussed by guests including ex-Arsenal midfielder Parlour on Friday morning. The 51-year-old was left stunned by Jenas and suggested the interview was pointless.
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Parlour said: “He should’ve just said pass. Pass, pass, pass. I don’t know… what was the point of that interview? I don’t really know. The only people who win out of this are the lawyers, I should imagine.”
Guests listened to the interview again two hours later, with Parlour labelling the three-minute clip a waste of his time.
As the audio ended, Parlour said: “Tell you what, what a waste of three minutes of the morning. I could’ve had a nice cup of tea, I’d have made you a cup of tea there. What was the point in that?
“If you can’t say nothing, just say it right at the start, ‘sorry I can’t speak now', and that’s it. Interview’s over. I’m sure the listeners are really riveted at home listening to that.”
The BBC initially confirmed that Jenas had been dropped from presenting duties on The One Show. It was subsequently announced that he has been removed from his presenting and punditry duties across BBC Sport programmes Match of the Day and Radio 5 Live.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Jenas said: "I can't really talk about it. As you can probably see, I'm not happy about it. But currently as it stands I'm going to have to let the lawyers deal with it.
"There's two sides... that's all I can say now."
He added: "I'm not happy about this situation. I'm going to be speaking to my lawyers about it, is all I can say right now."
