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An ABC presenter has been forced to apologise after she made ‘insensitive’ comments about Bosnia in the lead-up to the USA’s World Cup match with the country.
Abigail Vélez was presenting the ABC7 Eyewitness News when she said she couldn’t point to the Balkan country on a map.
The US native plainly favoured her home country when presenting an instalment of the southern California news programme on Thursday.
She was on scene at a watch party in Long Beach, which saw the USA beaten out 3-2 by Turkey, when she offered a dose of trash talk to the national men’s team’s upcoming opponents.
Teasing the Thursday match between the USA and Bosnia-Herzegovina, she said: ‘One thing about Bosnia, I could not point out where it is on a map.’
She continued: ‘I don’t know the first thing about Bosnia and I don’t want to know because Team USA, we’re back, we’re better than ever.
‘Get prepared Bosnia, because you don’t want it like that, but you’re gonna get it.’
The comments didn’t go over all too well with the Bosnian football team, which are competing in their second-ever men’s World Cup tournament as an independent nation.
The official team account tweeted: ‘My goodness, the stereotypes write themselves…’ The post has been viewed over 11million times on the platform.
In the comments section, the football side went on to note that the president of ABC News, Almin Karamehmedovic, is actually Bosnian and added: ‘The worst part is the confidence that she said this with!’
Vélez has now apologised for the World Cup coverage and to the players on the Bosnia-Herzegovina national team.
In an all-text post to her Instagram, she wrote: ‘In a poor effort to have a little fun with World Cup competition, I took it too far and made a thoughtless comment on air that was insensitive and inappropriate.
‘I apologise to the people of Bosnia and the Bosnian football team.
‘The World Cup is supposed to be about uniting communities around the world, and my comment didn’t reflect that spirit. Wishing all the teams the very best as they continue their World Cup journey.’
The Bosnian team shared the apology as an update to their prior tweet, which appeared to divide social media users between those who took her initial comments as harmless and those who thought them ignorant.
Aidan Simardone commented on X: ‘Americans aren’t just ignorant, they are proud of their ignorance,’ while Mike della Phora took the opposite tack and wrote: ‘Apologise for what? It was a joke aimed at herself.’