Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has been suspended from his role as a football television pundit in England after video footage emerged of him spitting towards a girl in a car, the television company said on Monday.
Carragher has apologised for the incident, which took place after Liverpool lost 2-1 to Manchester United on Saturday, calling it "a moment of madness".
The 40-year-old former England international was summoned for talks with Sky Sports who had earlier described his actions as "unacceptable".
"Sky takes this matter extremely seriously and strongly condemns Jamie's actions," Sky Sports said in a statement. "We've made that clear to him in person and suspended him from his duties. It falls well below the standards we expect of our people."
Danish broadcaster TV3 has also dropped Carragher from their coverage of Manchester United's Uefa Champions League tie against Sevilla on Tuesday.
"Jamie should have been to Old Trafford for us tomorrow night," TV3's head of sport Peter Norrelund told Danish media. "We have taken him off. It would have been like sending him into the lion's den. I've watched the video, and it does not look very nice,"
Carragher was driving home after summarising on Manchester United's win over Liverpool at Old Trafford when he apparently became involved in a conversation with the occupants of an adjacent car.
A video taken from the car, released on the website of several British newspapers, clearly shows Mr Carragher spitting.
In the video the father of the girl can be heard shouting: "Unlucky Jamie lad. Two, one".
"Totally out of order and I've apologised personally to all the family this evening," Mr Carragher said on Twitter.
"I was goaded 3/4 times along the motorway while being filmed and lost my rag. No excuses, apologies."
Mr Carragher, who joined Sky Sports after retiring as a player in 2013, has become a popular pundit working regularly alongside former United defender Gary Neville.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Fireball
Moscow claimed it hit the largest military fuel storage facility in Ukraine, triggering a huge fireball at the site.
A plume of black smoke rose from a fuel storage facility in the village of Kalynivka outside Kyiv on Friday after Russia said it had destroyed the military site with Kalibr cruise missiles.
"On the evening of March 24, Kalibr high-precision sea-based cruise missiles attacked a fuel base in the village of Kalynivka near Kyiv," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine confirmed the strike, saying the village some 40 kilometres south-west of Kyiv was targeted.
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