NBC Premier League analyst Lee Dixon found himself in a bit of hot water on Saturday when covering the Arsenal vs Chelsea match. During what was a tightly contested game, lead play-by-play man Arlo White made note of Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri popping a piece of gum into his mouth on the sideline. Sarri, who is a known smoker, uses gum to get through games and has been lampooned before for chewing more gum in tense games.
After White noted the gum, Dixon said “any more games like this and he’ll be back on the fags again”. Fags is a colloquial term for cigarette in the UK. It obviously has a different, offensive connotation in the United States.
The comment was not brought up again during the game. In the post game show though, Arlo White did note that Dixon had said something that in British English is non-offensive, commonly used slang. Dixon followed it up by apologizing for a poor word choice.
