Discrimination scandal in the NFL: Jon Gruden has resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders because of nasty insults.

Los Angeles (SID) – Discrimination scandal in the National Football League (NFL): Jon Gruden has resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders because of nasty insults. After he had already been accused of racist remarks, new revelations of misogynistic and homophobic emails by the New York Times now led to his exit.

“I love the Raiders and don’t want to be a disruption to them,” Gruden (58) shared in his statement on the Raiders’ homepage: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Current assistant Rich Bisaccia will take over Gruden’s duties as interim coach for the time being.

Already on Friday, the Wall Street Journal had revealed that Gruden had made racial slurs against the head of the players’ union, DeMaurice Smith. In an email, he wrote that Smith had “lips the size of Michelin tyres”. The NFL condemned the remarks as “appalling, abhorrent and completely at odds with its own values”.

Gruden then confessed to ESPN over the weekend that he was ashamed of his words and that he had “no traits of racism” in him. On Monday evening, the New York Times published further emails from the head coach from 2011 to 2018 with various anti-gay and misogynistic insults. Among other things, he had called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a “faggot” and a “pussy”. During this time Gruden worked as a pundit for the US broadcaster ESPN. 

Gruden, who was head coach of the Raiders from 1998 to 2001 and for a second term since 2018, won the Super Bowl against the Raiders in January 2003 in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Upon his return, he coached the only openly gay NFL player there to date in Carl Nassib. In June, Nassib came out of the closet and received great acclaim for it far beyond the borders of the league.