Raheem Sterling: Tyrone Mings refuses to appear on Talksport after Dave Kitson comments

Tyrone Mings has refused to appear on Talksport after pundit Dave Kitson suggested black players "make themselves a target" in the wake of the Raheem Sterling racism controversy.

A video widely shared on social media appeared to show a male Chelsea fan calling Sterling a “f*****g black c***” during the first half of Manchester City’s 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge.

The incident has thrown a spotlight on how black players are treated within football, especially by the media, after Sterling issued a statement on Instagram to accuse newspapers of “fuel racism (in) an aggressive behaviour” – a claim that has been widely supported.

And following Kitson's comments Bournemouth defender Mings, who was set to appear on the station, has pulled out of his scheduled interview.

"I’m meant to be doing an interview with talksport tomorrow which won’t be happening," he said on Twitter. "I’m fed up of broadcasting channels who have a huge voice allowing this sort of sh*t to be said.

"Like someone or dislike them, there is no ‘but’ or grey area when it comes to racism."

Former professional footballer Kitson faced a backlash after he accused Sterling of deleting past Instagram posts that, he claimed, created “jealousy” among his critics and invited abuse on himself.

Speaking on air Kitson said: “You cannot condone this racism in any way shape or form, I think it’s disgusting. I do believe that players make themselves a target. Why Raheem Sterling? There are other black players on the pitch, every single week.

“I just think that we have a duty of care to ourselves as footballers, to be a little bit careful with social media, and the way we portray ourselves. Jealousy is an awful thing amongst the human race.

“I trawled through Raheem Sterling’s Instagram feed this morning to find that a lot of what he put on in his early days has now been deleted, and it was, ‘look at my cars, look at my house, look at this bathroom, look at this, look at that, look at me.’ And that’s going to antagonise people.

“Now that is no excuse whatsoever for racially abusing somebody, but you sow a seed amongst people who are not racist, not to like that particular person, because they don’t want to see that in their faces every day.

“Now, when you go onto Raheem Sterling’s Instagram it’s ‘here’s a goal I scored last week, here’s me in a kids hospital.’ So someone’s got hold of him and said, ‘look, you can’t do that anymore. But that seed has already been planted in people’s heads.”