Who is Dide? Sky News meets the mystery rapper who claims to play in the Premier League

Published

2 years ago

October 27, 2023

admin

Dressed in what appears to be a very expensive designer track top, from the neck down the man in front of me certainly looks the part of professional footballer on a day off. Box-fresh white Nikes, baggy shorts over sports tights and gloves complete the look – along with the studded black rose mask concealing his identity.

This is Dide, an incognito rapper who started releasing music online earlier in 2023. Why the mystery? Because, he claims, he is also a current Premier League player.

Strolling across a small city pitch usually reserved for five-a-side games near London’s Waterloo Station, a far cry from the multimillion-pound stadiums he says he is used to, he says hello and shakes hands with the Sky News crew before settling down on the astroturf to give his first on-camera interview, his manager and also his own cameraman in tow.

Word spreads quickly and a small crowd of young footballers grows behind us, eager to watch the man in the strange mask, potentially a British footballing hero, in action.

Dide’s appearance gives little away; he’s about 5ft 10in and slender-ish, though the top is loose, pretty much every inch of his body is covered. The voice that has clocked up millions of YouTube views and Spotify plays, now speaking in person – the accent suggests London – is not distorted or changed in any way, he assures.

There has been frenzied speculation and numerous headlines written since the release of his first track, Thrill, in April. The song has racked up more than 5m plays on Spotify and Dide has more than 200,000 monthly listeners; on YouTube, the track has 2.3m views and the artist almost 80,000 subscribers.

Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah seems to be the favourite among internet sleuths, but other names in the mix include Nketiah’s teammates Bukayo Saka and Reiss Nelson, Chelsea’s Noni Madueke, Fulham’s Alex Iwobi – already known for his rapping skills – and West Ham’s Michail Antonio.

Plus, Wilfried Zaha and Sheyi Ojo, although Zaha moved from Crystal Palace to Turkey’s Galatasaray earlier this year, and Ojo is on loan in Belgium from Championship club Cardiff City – but did play for Liverpool until 2022. Everything from video locations – Bermondsey has been spotted – to possible tattoos has been poured over for a potential giveaway.

Or, could this all be a clever marketing ploy? There is no doubt the anonymity has helped create a wave of interest. His lyrics feed the hype, with references to a team that “stays winning” and players including Neymar and Harry Kane, as well as him “seeing seven figures”.

Sky News asked to verify Dide’s identity not for publication, but he politely declined. However, rather than requesting to meet at perhaps the safer option of a music studio, he did agree to a football pitch, prepared to show off his skills – more on this later.

He also doesn’t dodge questions about the stadiums he’s played at or the players he’s faced during his career. Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium has the best changing rooms, apparently; interestingly, considering they were only promoted this season, Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road the worst. “No disrespect”.

A quick look at the fixtures confirms only four Premier League teams have played Luton Town at Kenilworth Road this season: West Ham, Wolves, Burnley, Spurs. Then there’s the date of our interview, the afternoon of Sunday 22 October. If Dide plays for West Ham, he has just half an hour afterwards to kick off against Aston Villa, at Villa Park. Even Kylian Mbappe isn’t that quick.

Would he really narrow it down by this much? Could he be a more recent Premier League signing who played Luton previously in the Championship? Or could his Luton answer be a slip-up?

‘I see things from afar’

Dide insists he’s the real deal. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” he says. “Obviously we made the decision [to be anonymous] and we ran with it. It kind of organically happened. Nothing was really thought out to trick people… The main thing for me is the music rather than the football player. I guess fans and the public ran with all these different opinions, which is cool. But it was definitely not a marketing trick.”

He says his favourite player of all time is Arsenal hero Thierry Henry – a clue to his team, maybe? – and the greatest player he has come up against is recently retired former Chelsea and Real Madrid star Eden Hazard. The most annoying thing about being a Premier League footballer is “not being able to go to Tesco or something like that… you don’t really have a life outside of football, there’s always eyes on you”. It’s a fairly standard answer on the worst aspects of celebrity – but if true, suggests he could be at the more high-profile end of the fame scale.

Giving a fact most wouldn’t know about the league, he offers a fairly detailed answer about how referees explain changes and new regulations to teams at the start of each season. And his take on VAR? “Obviously it’s good because it makes it fair, but it kind of takes out the emotion.”

He speaks slowly, pausing often and considering his responses. He refers to “we”, which is Dide and his manager, Shola Akins, one of apparently very few people to know his real identity. The music is released through their label BLVCKROSE Ltd and Akins, who has previously worked as a music editor, says they have known each other for a few years.

The anonymity “protects myself, protects other football players as well”, Dide says, because his lyrics don’t just tell his own stories. “It might be about my teammate, for example.” They also take in politics, with Thrill tackling knife crime and poverty: “F*** being rich, I’d rather help the poor/ Government’s got no remorse/ And Rishi Sunak couldn’t help the cause/ So here’s Dide spitting peace tryna wipe the floor.”

“I see things from afar and I feel like, especially at the moment, there’s a lot of stuff going on, a lot of people need support,” he says. “A lot of the communities and the young people, some people don’t have places to live. The economy at the moment ain’t great, prices are rising. And I feel like Rishi Sunak and the government, obviously they’re responsible for that. I think that specific lyric was more of a cry out for help for our community.”

‘Footballers are human beings – we do have feelings’

Players can often face criticism on and off the pitch, he says, giving another reason for his mask. “Every game we get criticised, when we win, when we draw, whether you play bad, whether you play good. Adding something outside of football is just adding more [potential for] criticism. So it was easy for me to make that decision to try and keep the music separate. And, you know, they’re two different things. My effort and my concentration towards football is 100%.”

Dide says he has come to see making music as a form of therapy, a way to “let it all out”. Is mental health an issue in the sport? “I don’t want to seem like we don’t get support because we do,” he says. “Obviously the PFA are big on mental health and supporting the players… but definitely mental health is a big thing in football.

“A lot of people don’t really get to see what goes on behind the scenes… whether you’re playing one minute and you’re dropped, whether you’re injured for however many weeks. People don’t really see how that can affect you as a human being. That’s definitely one of the main topics I want to touch on in the music, because people need to understand that footballers are human beings as well… we do have feelings, we do have things we’re going through outside of football as well.”

Dide says he hopes to motivate younger footballers and fans, “spread a positive vibe”, as well as detail “the highs and lows”. Following the release of his first mixtape, Who Is Dide?, featuring tracks including Derby Day and Tactical Foul, in September, how does he answer the titular question? “I feel like Dide is a voice for football players, for the sport.”

He has apparently been playing football, his “first love”, since he was six, says it is all he has ever considered as a career. Music, he reveals, is a passion for a lot of players behind the scenes but was never something he always planned to pursue seriously. “One day we had training, we had the day off the next day, me and my teammates thought: why not? Let’s go studio… It kind of just progressed into what it is. It wasn’t really something I planned to do, but it’s just another way of expressing myself.”

Clarifying, he says his teammates remain in the dark. “A lot of us go into the studio just for fun, but no one really knows how far it’s gone.” But some of them have their suspicions. “They ask me, like, ‘Oh, is it you?’… But just the same way that it can be me, it could be someone else. So there’s no real one thing that would make it be, you know, one football player.”

The mask features roses because his favourite colour is rose gold, he says, which certainly sounds like a credible answer for someone who could afford rose gold jewellery. Both the mask and the name Dide contain clues to who he is, he adds. “As the music comes out, it will kind of make sense… Maybe I might reveal myself in the future. Who knows?”

Some have questioned how a professional footballer could dedicate so much time to another venture. Dide admits he has just one day off a week, sometimes two, “depending on if we win or get a good result”. His free time comes in the evening “when you’re at home chilling by yourself, or with your family, whatever. That’s when I start writing music… or playing FIFA with my teammates. It’s not something I have to go out my way to do because I’m at home anyway”.

What do the experts say?

Trying to get to the bottom of it all, we spoke to a football writer, a music expert and an accent coach to get their thoughts.

British grime DJ and hip-hop expert Alex de Lacey, an assistant professor of popular music at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, says the interesting thing about Dide is the crossover between football and entertainment. David Beckham set the precedent for this back in the 1990s with his moves into fashion, and John Barnes is almost as famous now for his rap on New Order’s World In Motion, England’s 1990 World Cup song, as he is for his football. Believe it or not, Eric Cantona is currently on tour after releasing his first single, and recently there has been a political crossover, too, most notably through Marcus Rashford’s social campaigning.

“You saw it in the ’90s, some kind of engagement between Britpop and football and this kind of conflation in culture. But UK rap and drill and football is much more tied together… there was the grime clash between Bradley Wright-Phillips and Yannick Bolasie. And now what we’re seeing is musicians and footballers hanging out, socialising, and this sense of proximity is much more pronounced than it was before.”

Alex says “a lot of work” has gone into Dide’s music, with a considered approach taken and “super high production values”. The mystery surrounding the claimed Premier League player identity is “very clever”, but “the music itself backs it up,” he says. “It would be harder to succeed in this way if he wasn’t a good rapper.”

He says Dide’s real identity actually doesn’t matter as much as what he represents – “a reflection of this increasing overlap between football, music, entertainment” – and the point at which people find out “means it’s no longer as interesting”. As an Arsenal fan, however, he says it would be exciting to discover the rapper is a Gunner. “They’re also very hot on their music partnerships, they had Pusha T in the third kit recently. But it’s all just conjecture – which I guess is the point of it.”

He continues: “A lot of young men and women growing up in London, in the inner city… they have a proximity to this culture in a way that means they probably did rap when they were kids. So they kind of grew up rapping, listening to the same tunes, playing football… they say the main way to succeed is through football or through rap. I think that’s something which has been cultivated over the past 20 years with young people in their everyday social life. So the likelihood of this happening more and more just seems pretty apparent.”

Voice and accent coach Ashley Howard had a listen to Dide’s tracks and speaking voice to see if he could shed any light on his identity, analysing his music and speech against the speech of some of the frontrunners. The rapper’s accent falls into the category of “multicultural London English”, he says, which is influenced by east London as well as the Caribbean, Africa and India, and now heard mainly in south London but also further afield around the capital and other parts of the UK.

There are occasional intonations in Dide’s rapping that would suggest Jamaican influence or heritage, which might suggest Michail Antonio or even Raheem Sterling, he says. However, this could also be down to the difference between Dide’s speaking voice and rapping voice, he adds, as there can be a difference.

But you also have to listen to the placement and rhythm of someone’s accent as well, which he says makes him rule out Antonio. Iwobi and Ojo are possibles, he says, but Saka is most similar. “I think it could be his voice… Dide’s voice is quite far forward, there’s a very light and open quality to his rapping. And I think Bukayo’s voice lends itself a bit more towards that.”

So what do football experts think? Mark White, a writer for the FourFourTwo magazine and website, is sceptical. “Given how much fans study players these days, given how nothing is secret in football, I think it would be very, very unlikely to be a Premier League footballer,” he says. “I might be wrong, but if Dide is actually a Premier League footballer, I’ve got the feeling he’s had to throw people off the scent with his lyrics a little bit.”

White has met Nketiah and doesn’t believe he is the man behind the mask. Of all the theories, like our voice coach he thinks England star Saka’s speaking voice is the closest match. “But it feels like that would be too good to be true, if one of the best players in the world at the moment was also moonlighting as a rapper. I think that would just be too exciting.”

So… can Dide take a penalty?

After we chat, Dide swaps his trainers for football boots and puts the ball on the spot – pointing out the difficulties in doing this while wearing his mask. The first couple of shots are easily saved by one of the young boys from the crowd who has happily offered to play goalie, but he soon gets into his stride.

Is he convincing? I definitely want to believe it – and there’s no reason why a professional footballer couldn’t also be a talented rapper. Based on his skills? It’s hard to say, although it’s worth noting the mask once again, the small five-a-side goal, and also that he doesn’t appear to be treating his shots with the gravitas of, say, a cup final. Plus, he wouldn’t be the first English player to miss a penalty – though I don’t imagine the pressure of scoring in front of a Sky News crew is quite the same as a game watched by millions.

As for what’s next for Dide, there are apparently plans to play live shows at some point, working around his schedule. And there is nothing in his contract that would stop him from releasing music, he says, whether he ever reveals his identity or not.

“If anything [the music is] a positive. I’m trying to inspire other people, inspire other football players to come out and speak their truth… and just express themselves. Obviously, football is the main priority and if I was coming in late to training or whatever, then obviously that would be a problem. But I like doing music in my spare time. To me, it’s better than going out clubbing or whatever.”

On the speculation, he says the strangest theory he has come across is that Dide is Manchester United centre-back Harry Maguire. “To me, that’s funny. Obviously I know Harry Maguire quite well… but I don’t really look at social media too much.”

Instead, his “main happiness” comes from the positive reaction and “what people are saying about the actual music itself”, he says. “Long may that continue.”

Are we any closer to answering the question: who is Dide? Maybe a little. But it looks like the mystery will stay alive for a while yet.

Entertainment

Why are Kneecap controversial?

Published

13 hours ago

April 29, 2025

admin

Irish band Kneecap have had a meteoric rise in the music industry, with tens of millions of streams on Spotify alone and widespread critical acclaim.

The trio’s genre-bending rap/hip hop tracks, performed in a mixture of English and Irish-language, have clearly resonated with a mainstream audience, but their many controversial moments – some of them seemingly intentional – have helped them hit such heights.

Here’s what you need to know about the band and their most notorious moments.

Who’s in the band?

The group is made up of three friends from Belfast: Mo Chara (Liam Og O Hannaidh), Moglai Bap (Naoise O Caireallain) and DJ Provai (JJ O Dochartaigh).

The latter is a former teacher who still wears a balaclava, initially to disguise himself from his students when the band started out in 2017.

They were controversial from the get-go – and seemingly by design.

Their debut track – CEARTA – is based on how band member Bap was stopped by police for spray-painting cearta, the Irish word for rights, on a bus stop.

Before fame, Bap and Chara, who have known each other for around 15 years, transformed a former youth club into party hub, where they would play their favourite tracks.

And it was through this venture into the club space that they later met DJ Provai.

The group called themselves Kneecap in reference to kneecapping, a common form of paramilitary punishment in Northern Ireland during The Troubles which sees someone shot or hit repeatedly on both knees.

From cult heroes to mainstream success

Kneecap released their first mixtape, 3cag, in 2018 to critical acclaim, and their 2019 single HOOD is their most streamed single to date.

But their success reached new levels in 2024 with the release of their 18-track album, Fine Art, which culminated in a headline-worthy crowd attending their early-morning timeslot at Glastonbury.

The band then ventured into the film industry with a self-titled biopic about their rise to prominence, set in post-Troubles Belfast, starring themselves alongside Irish actor Michael Fassbender.

Before its full release last summer, it had been the talk of various film festivals, including Tribeca in New York.

Speaking to Sky News at Glastonbury last year, the band said the reaction had been “crazy”.

Since then it’s got crazier, with the film getting six BAFTA nominations and earning its writer and director Rich Peppiatt a win for Outstanding Debut.

The band cracked the UK and are now following suit in the US, having sold out several shows there.

Court battle with the UK government

It would take a long time to cover all of Kneecap’s controversial moments; much of it is a part of their music itself.

They have been banned from Irish public service broadcaster RTE for their references to drug-taking.

But there have been some particularly high-profile incidents since 2024.

The first was their legal battle with the then-Conservative UK government, who blocked a grant for the band which was initially approved by the British Phonographic Industry.

The group’s application to the Music Export Growth Scheme, which supports UK-registered artists in global markets, was for £14,250, but Kemi Badenoch, then business secretary, stopped it.

At the time, a government spokesperson said it fully supported freedom of speech, but that it was “hardly surprising” it did not want to hand out UK taxpayers’ money to those opposed to the United Kingdom.

One of their most famous tracks had been 2019’s Get Your Brits Out, which had been criticised for being anti-British.

The trio have always denied this being the case.

Chara told Sky News after their Glastonbury set: “This is a thing that people love to spin, like we’re some anti-British band.

“We have English family. We have loads of good friends who call themselves British. It’s the British government we don’t like.”

Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK government in November, earning them the same amount that the grant was worth.

DJ Provai said the band’s motivation was “equality”.

“For us, this action was never about £14,250; it could have been 50p,” he said, after the band said it would donate the funds to two Belfast charities.

“This was an attack on artistic culture, an attack on the Good Friday Agreement itself and an attack on Kneecap and our way of expressing ourselves.”

Calling for deaths of Conservative MPs

Police say they are assessing a video of a Kneecap performance from November 2023, in which a member of the trio allegedly called for the death of Conservative MPs.

The member is alleged to have said: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

Two British MPs have been murdered in the past 10 years – Labour’s Jo Cox in 2016 and Conservative Sir David Amess in 2021.

In a statement, Kneecap said they rejected “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual. Ever.”

They added: “An extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action.

“To the Amess and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt.”

Pro-Palestinian messages at gigs

The investigation into the MP comments was announced several days after the Met said it had referred a different video from a Kneecap gig to be reviewed by counter-terror police.

Footage from that gig, at London’s Kentish Town Forum last November, appeared to show one member of the group shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah”.

Hamas and Hezbollah are both proscribed as terrorist groups in the UK. Under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, it is an offence to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”.

The police say they are “assessing” both clips to “determine whether further police investigation is required”.

Kneecap have said they are facing a “co-ordinated smear campaign” after speaking out about “the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people”.

In their statement, they said: “Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation’s history.

“Kneecap’s message has always been – and remains – one of love, inclusion, and hope. This is why our music resonates across generations, countries, classes and cultures and has brought hundreds of thousands of people to our gigs.”

Investigation comes after Coachella fallout

Just days before the police investigations were announced, TV personality Sharon Osbourne called for Kneecap’s US work visas to be revoked after accusing them of making “aggressive political statements” including “projections of anti-Israel messages and hate speech” at Coachella Music and Arts Festival.

As the band performed on the second night, they displayed words on the big screen reading: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

“It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. F*** Israel. Free Palestine”.

Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, which came after Hamas gunmen launched an attack killing 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October 2023, has seen at least 52,000 people killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Speaking to Rolling Stone after Osbourne’s comments, Kneecap member Mo Chara said: “Her rant has so many holes in it that it hardly warrants a reply, but she should listen to War Pigs that was written by Black Sabbath [led by Ozzy Osbourne, her husband].”

He also told the outlet: “We believe we have an obligation to use our platform when we can to raise the issue of Palestine, and it was important for us to speak out at Coachella as the USA is the main funder and supplier of weapons to Israel as they commit genocide in Gaza.”

Kneecap has been continually outspoken in favour of Palestinians at gigs.

In November, DJ Provai arrived for the court verdict against the UK government in a vehicle bearing the Irish and Palestinian flags and blaring loud music.

Entertainment

Kneecap’s Eden Project gig cancelled amid row over ‘kill MPs’ comments

Published

14 hours ago

April 29, 2025

admin

Kneecap's Eden Project gig cancelled amid row over 'kill MPs' comments

A performance by Belfast rap trio Kneecap at the Eden Project has been cancelled.

It comes after a row in which one of the group appeared to call for Tory MPs to be killed and another appeared to shout “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” in historical footage of a gig.

A spokesperson for Eden Sessions, which organises the gigs at the Cornwall venue, said: “Eden Sessions Limited announced today that the Kneecap show at Eden Project scheduled for July 4, 2025 has been cancelled.

“Ticket purchasers will be contacted directly and will be fully refunded.

“The refund process will commence from Wednesday, April 30 2025. Refunds will be processed against the original payment cards used. Purchasers should allow six working days for funds to be received into their accounts.”

On Monday, the band apologised to the families of murdered MPs Sir David Amess and Jo Cox after footage emerged of one of its members appearing to say “kill your local MP”.

But Katie Amess, daughter of Sir David, dismissed their apology, accusing them of “deflection and excuses and gaslighting”.

Why are Kneecap controversial?
Murdered MP’s daughter ‘happy to meet’ rappers

In a statement posted on Instagram, the group, comprising Liam Og O Hannaidh, Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh, said they “reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual.

The footage had been “exploited and weaponised,” they said.

Their statement didn’t impress Ms Amess, however, who on Tuesday accused them of “gaslighting”, saying their comments were “absurd” and “not an apology”.

“They don’t understand what they’re talking about, they obviously aren’t educated enough in what they’re speaking about to think that they can use those excuses and everybody will be like, ‘oh, never mind, let’s move on to something else’. They haven’t taken any accountability.

“These words that they are using are extremely dangerous and they have not acknowledged that.

‘Half-hearted’ apology

But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman called the band’s statement “half-hearted” and urged them to make a fuller apology.

He said Downing Street “completely reject in the strongest possible terms the comments that they’ve made, particularly in relation to MPs and intimidation as well as obviously the situation in the Middle East.

“It’s right that the police are looking into these videos.”

Mrs Badenoch said she thought they were apologising “because they realise that people don’t like the kind of things that they’ve been saying” and are “worried they’re going to lose their slot at Glastonbury“.

Police assessing band’s videos

The Metropolitan Police are assessing footage from a November 2023 gig appearing to show one member of the group saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”, along with a video clip from a different concert in November 2024 in which a member of the band appeared to shout “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” – groups which are banned as terrorist organisations in the UK.

In Monday’s statement, Kneecap insisted they have “never supported” Hamas or Hezbollah.

Ministers also put pressure on the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival over the band’s inclusion in this year’s line-up.

In the Commons, security minister Dan Jarvis said ministers “would urge organisers of the Glastonbury Festival to think very carefully about who is invited to perform there later this year”.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

Entertainment

‘Powerful individuals’ at BBC making lives of colleagues ‘unbearable’, says chairman

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

admin

'Powerful individuals' at BBC making lives of colleagues 'unbearable', says chairman

“Powerful individuals” at the BBC are making the lives of their colleagues “unbearable”, the corporation’s chairman has said, after a review into its workplace culture.

The independent report, sparked by the Huw Edwards scandal, was carried out by Change Associates, the same management consultancy that led a similar review in 2013, following the Jimmy Savile scandal.

BBC chairman Samir Shah told staff ahead of the report’s release on Monday morning: “There is a minority of people whose behaviour is simply not acceptable. And there are still places where powerful individuals – on and off screen – can abuse that power to make life for their colleagues unbearable.”

He said the report made recommendations to “prioritise action over procedural change”, as well as addressing “deep-seated issues” including staff not feeling confident enough to speak up.

Mr Shah added: “In the end, it’s quite simple: if you are a person who is prepared to abuse power or punch down or behave badly, there is no place for you at the BBC.”

While the review, which heard from around 2,500 employees and freelancers from 19 different countries, found no evidence of a toxic culture within the corporation, some staff said there was “a minority of people at the BBC – both on and off-air – who were able to behave unacceptably without it being addressed”.

The report said: “Even though they are small in number, their behaviour creates large ripples which negatively impact the BBC’s culture and external reputation.”

It said these people were “dotted across the organisation in different functions and departments”, and were “often in positions where power could be abused”.

While no specific names were mentioned in the report, it did note “some names were mentioned several times”.

Some considered ‘indispensable’

One example of poor behaviour given included an “untouchable” presenter being “called out for exceptionally inappropriate language”. It said that while “a report was made” and sanctions promised, a senior manager who was in the room at the time of the incident was “perceived as deferring so as not to rock the boat”.

It said a blind eye could be turned to poor behaviours “when productions were award winning or attracting large audiences”.

The report went on to warn that, “at its worst”, the corporation “rewards” such individuals “by providing little or no consequence to their actions”.

It recognised that some of those displaying “unacceptable behaviour” were perceived as “indispensable” to the corporation, and that by moving “potentially vexatious issues” to formal grievance without appropriate due diligence, the BBC was “tolerating” the problem.

It also said that by keeping those who formally raised an issue “in the dark about progress and outcomes,” it was unfairly punishing them.

The BBC board has fully accepted the report and its findings, as has BBC management.

BBC director-general Tim Davie called the report “an important moment for the BBC and the wider industry”.

He said the corporation would implement the recommendations “at pace”, making sure that BBC values are “lived and championed by the whole organisation each and every day.”

Actions being taken include:

• A strengthened code of conduct, with specific guidance for on-air presenters
• A more robust disciplinary policy, with updated examples of misconduct and clear consequences
• All TV production partners must meet Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) industry standards
• A new “Call It Out” campaign to promote positive behaviour, empower informal resolution and challenge poor conduct
• Clear pledges for anyone raising concerns, setting out what they can expect from the BBC

Further actions include succession planning for the most senior on-air roles, a new “resolving concerns helpline”, more training for managers and clearer behaviour expectations for freelancers.

A difficult year for the BBC

The BBC has been under pressure to act after a string of complaints against some of its top talent over the last 12 months.

In September, Edwards, who was the BBC’s lead news presenter, pleaded guilty to three counts of “making” indecent images of children. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence and will be on the sex offenders’ register for seven years.

Earlier this month, following a CPS review, Russell Brand, was charged with rape and sexual assault.

Brand, who worked for BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music between 2006 and 2008, denies all allegations against him and says all his sexual encounters were consensual.

The BBC also apologised in January after a review found it “did not take adequate action” upon learning about concerns over former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood following claims of “bullying and misogynistic behaviour”.

Other allegations of misconduct against BBC talent include accusations of a toxic environment on Strictly Come Dancing and the firing of The One Show presenter Jermaine Jenas after he admitted sending inappropriate messages to female colleagues.

And late last year, Greg Wallace stepped down from his presenting role on MasterChef after multiple historical allegations of misconduct.

Wallace’s lawyers have said it is “entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”. Wallace has since said he is seeking “space to heal”.