A fundraising website have pulled a campaign to support a Burnley fan who helped organise the White Lives Matter banner stunt.
Jake Hepple, 24, claimed responsibility after a plane carrying the offensive banner was flown over the Etihad during Monday night’s 5-0 defeat at Manchester City.
The stunt happened shortly after players from both sides took a knee to show solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Hepple and his girlfriend Megan Rambadt were sacked by their employers earlier this week.
Two campaigns were set up on crowd funding platform GoFundMe to raise money for the pair.
(Image: Facebook)
LancsLive report GoFundMe have pulled both ‘Get behind Jake Hepple and Megan Rambadt’ and ‘Support Megan Rambadt’ campaigns as they “violated terms of service”.
The latter had raised more the £2,000 since it was launched on Wednesday. All donations have been returned to contributors.
Hepple worked as a welder at Paradigm Precision in Lancashire, but has been dismissed for taking responsibility for the stunt.
The company said it “did not condone or tolerate racism in any form”.
(Image: Twitter)
(Image: Getty Images)
Hepple told MailOnline: “I’m not racist. I know people are trying to make out to be one but I’m not. I’ve got lots of black and Asian friends and this banner was actually inspired by the Black Lives Movement.
“We were not trying to offend the movement or black people.
“I believe that it’s also important to acknowledge that white lives matter too. That’s all we were trying to say.”
His girlfriend Megan was also let go by her employers Solace Foot Health and Reflexology over alleged racist posts.
They said in a series of statements: “It was brought to our attention that one of our employees has been publicly posting and tweeting comments of an abhorrently racist nature.
“It came as quite a shock to us as the lady in question has never shown, insinuated or acted in any way that would suggest she could have such feelings and beliefs.”
