BBC apologise for linking Aston Villa president Doug Ellis with Hezbollah in unfortunate sub-title gaffe

Life president Ellis attended a Villa match last month where a sub-title on Match of the Day claimed he was visiting with the Lebanese Shia Muslim group

Former Aston Villa chairman Sir Doug Ellis (Getty Images)

The BBC has issued an apology to former Aston Villa chairman Sir Doug Ellis after he was said to have visited Villa Park this weekend with Hezbollah in a mistake on the broadcaster’s subtitler.

Ellis is the life president at Villa after he sold his stake in the club to current owner Randy Lerner back in 2006, but he returned to Villa Park for the 4-0 defeat by Everton on 21 November, which prompted Match of the Day commentator Steve Wilson to quip “Great to see Doug Ellis here in his Villa scarf.”

However, what appeared on the screen was not what Wilson had said, and the sub-titles instead read: “Great to see Doug Ellis here with Hezbollah.”

While subtitlers are known for their inaccuracies, linking Ellis to Hezbollah is a rather embarrassing and inaccurate episode for the BBC. Hezbollah is a Shia Muslim group and political party based in Lebanon.

The BBC issued a statement to apologise for the gaffe, and stress that they are doing everything possible to improve the subtitle reliability on ‘live’ matters such as Match of the Day.

“Match of the Day is a live programme and to subtitle it we used a method known as ‘live respeaking’,” a BBC spokesperson said.

“The voice recognition technology misrecognised the word ‘Villa’ leading to the error. We apologise for any offence caused and are working hard to make subtitles as accurate as they can be.”