Former head of recruitment at Cardiff City football club accused of sending racist, sexist and homophobic texts

The former head of recruitment at Cardiff City football club, Iain Moody and the club’s ex-manager Malky Mackay have been accused of sending sexist, racist and homophobic texts during their time together at Cardiff.

Iain Moody had been head of recruitment at Cardiff City when a falling out with the owner, Vincent Tan, led him to become director of football at Crystal Palace. Malky Mackay was tipped to become the new manager of Crystal Palace and so would have been reunited with Iain Moody.

However, Iain Moody has now resigned from Crystal Palace as a result of the FA allegations and Malky Mackay has withdrawn from the race to become manager.

However, the Daily Mail explains that London law firm Mishcon de Reya raided Moody’s home earlier this year as part of an investigation into transfer dealings. They seized his work computers and phones and allegedly found the incriminating text messages between him and Malky Mackay. On seeing the messages, Cardiff felt they had no choice but to pass the information to the FA.

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The text messages, some of which are published on the Daily Mail website, seem to leave no ethnic or diversity group untouched. There are scathing and derogatory messages on the Chinese, Blacks and on Jews as well as the usual suspects of gays and sexist remarks on women.

The Gay Football Supporters’ Network spokesman, Simon Smith, said: “The GFSN is saddened to hear reports of alleged homophobic comments by Malky Mackay. Homophobia is still a problem in football and we expect a high standard of conduct from managers, who should be setting a positive example of inclusion. We will be following the story closely and asking the FA to fully investigate the allegations.”

However Mackay and Moody could potentially avoid action from the FA if the governing body decides that the alleged text messages were private. In May the FA took no action against the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, when sexist emails from his work inbox were leaked to the press, citing that its policy was not to act on “private communications”