ITN correspondent Richard Pallot was talking about the paucity of black managers in football when he used the term.

A heavily edited version of the report has since been published on ITV’s news site.

An ITV News spokesman said: “ITV News apologises for the inappropriate use of the word ‘coloured’ in a report on racism and football in today’s News at 1.30pm. We take this error very seriously and we regret any offence caused.”

The comments sparked an outcry on social media. Channel 4 News’ Samira Ahmed tweeted: “So @DannyJohnJules says @itv news uses the word “coloured” in a report about racism. The politically correct response to this is W.T.F.”

While the former Red Dwarf actor was more scathing: “An @ITV news report on David Cameron’s ‘Race Pow-Wow’ at No 10 and the DINOSAURS referred to Black players as ‘COLORED’ [sic]. WTF? Dumb F***wits!”

The incident has somewhat overshadowed the PM’s summit which is aiming to tackle all form of prejudice within the sport.

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