Mirror Football
5 september 2026
Andy Gray will return to UK commentary, 12 years after he was sacked by Sky Sports in the wake of a sexism scandal.
Gray has been in exile from the UK, working for beIN SPORTS in Qatar, for the past several years alongside his long-time colleague Richard Keys. The pair moved to the Middle East following their sacking by Sky Sports for making sexist comments in 2011.
The pair left Sky Sports under a cloud after being caught on camera making derogatory and misogynistic comments about assistant referee Sian Massey-Ellis and the fitness of women to officiate matches. But Keys and Gray have now moved back to the UK from Doha and are embarking upon the next stage of their careers, having launched a podcast together.
Gray, 70, has now landed a gig on talkSPORT, and will work as a co-commentator on Liverpool's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night. He will partner Jim Proudfoot at Anfield for the radio broadcast, 12 years after he briefly worked on the FA Cup with BT Sport.
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"I'd like to think, somewhere, I could do a bit of commentary," Gray told the Daily Mail last month. "Not television, maybe, but radio. Just to see what it feels like again. I would like that."
Keys added: "I would be happy for you if that happened. I think you deserve it. To hear him back, analysing a football match, that would be special. He's the best I've ever known."
Gray played for Aston Villa, Wolves and Everton in a 17-year career before coming a well-known voice on Sky Sports. But he was forced out of the job after a live microphone caught his exchange with Keys about Massey-Ellis.
Keys was recorded saying: "Somebody better get down there and explain offside to her (Massey)," to which Gray replied: "Yeah, I know. Can you believe that? Female linesman. Forget what I said – they probably don't know the offside rule."
Keys then stated: "Course they don't" to which Gray responded: "Why is there a female linesman? Somebody's f***** up big."
Addressing what he said in 2011, Gray told the Daily Mail: "I can't imagine saying today what I said then, I just can't. I think we were two of the first people ever cancelled. I had 20 reporters outside my house for weeks."
He told Piers Morgan in 2022 that he considered taking his own life amid the backlash. “I suddenly found myself in a really dark place,” he said. "The house surrounded by people. And I knew I had done something wrong, of course I did, but I couldn’t compute it.
“My head was gone. If it hadn’t been for my wife, I don’t know what would have happened. I really don’t. Rachel was amazing. I was close to going down the garden, where I used to have a pond, with a little bottle and a few pills. I was that bad, one day – that bad, yeah... really weird, but I’m through it now.”
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