Northern Ireland star Kyle Lafferty is fighting to save his career after a video surfaced on social media in which the striker appears to be making an alleged sectarian comment.
The Irish Football Association plans to remove the 34-year-old from Ian Baraclough’s roster for Saturday’s Nations League, while his club Kilmarnock announced it had launched an investigation into the incident.
Footage posted online, which has been widely circulated, shows a man going to Lafferty in a bar and appearing to be asking for a photo for which the former Rangers man likes to pose.
As the “fan” leaves, he appears to be saying “Up the Kelts” directly to Lafferty, who initially turns his head before responding with an allegedly sectarian and derogatory remark.
An Irish FA source told the Belfast Telegraph: “It’s a complete set up, but you can’t respond with that kind of language. It’s terrible.”
Obviously, Lafferty met with manager Baraclough on Thursday night to discuss his actions in the video.
Lafferty is Northern Ireland’s second-highest male goalscorer with 20 goals in 85 appearances, although the last time he found the net for his country was in 2016.
He signed a new one-year contract with Kilmarnock in May.