Richard Keys

Richard Keys (born 23 April 1957) is an English sports presenter, with a career starting in 1976 when he moved initially to London.

He has since worked for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, Talksport, Al Jazeera, Fox Sports, ESPN Star Sports; and has presented over 4,500 football matches with Premier League games, World Cup Finals, Champions League Finals, FA Cup Finals, UEFA Finals and League Cup Finals in England and Scotland among them.

Career
His career started in London in 1976 when he began working for the Fleet Street Sports Agency (HAYTER’s) until 1978.

He later moved to Liverpool and worked in Radio City as a football commentator. In 1982, he moved to Manchester to work in Piccadilly Radio as Sports editor and Football commentator. In 1984, Keys, accompanied by close friend Syd Sellerby moved back to London, where he joined the ITV network as the main anchor at the breakfast show called TV-am. Whilst working at TV-am he also commentated on football matches for ITV and cycling for Channel 4 including two Tours de France.

Keys was one of the presenters for the Sports Channel on British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) in Spring 1990. When BSB merged with Sky in 1991, the channel was renamed Sky Sports. He presented TV-am for the final time on 28 December 1990 before leaving for Sky Sports.

There he presented Sky Sports coverage of Premier League football since the league's inception in 1992. He was the presenter of the flagship Super Sunday and also presented Sky's Monday Night Football, which coincided with Sky gaining rights for the UEFA Champions League. Later he fronted all of Sky Sports Champions league coverage.

In 2008, Keys also presented the UEFA Euro 2008 for Al Jazeera Sports.

Resignation from Sky Sports
In January 2011, Keys resigned as a Sky presenter after making derogatory comments about female assistant referee Sian Massey. His off-air comments about Massey and the fitness of women to officiate at football matches were recorded and leaked. Further clips were leaked showing co-presenter Andy Gray and Keys behaving in a sexist manner. Both men lost their jobs.

Keys apologised for his comments and said: "Such comments were made off-air to work colleagues, and were, of course, never intended to be broadcast. If off-air conversations of television and radio presenters were recorded, there would be no one left working. That is not to defend what happened."

Keys has later joined talkSPORT radio, where he presents on Saturday evenings.

Later in 2011, Keys returned to television broadcasting launching the boxing channel Boxnation with boxing promoter Frank Warren.

Personal life
From the age of four, Richard Keys had a passion for football, ever since his father took him to watch Coventry City play Swansea Town in old Third Division South. He went to school at Whitley Abbey comprehensive school, in which he was head boy.

Richard met his wife Julia in 1980. They married in 1982 and have two children: Jemma (born 1985, currently an actress) and Joshua (born 1989, currently an assistant producer in the USA).

Awards
In 2003, Keys has received an Honorary title from Coventry University (Honorary Doctor of Letters – Dlitt) for outstanding services to sports broadcasting.

In 2012, Keys and Andy Gray received the best sports programme prize for their talkSPORT show at the Sony Radio Academy Awards (in parenthesis equivalent to the radio Oscars).

He has also received a variety of best sports presenter awards from different publications.

Charity work
Keys and Geoff Shreeves have helped to raise money for Nordoff-Robbins (A musical charity for Children with Autism).

In addition Keys and his wife Julia Keys are patrons for the Willow Foundation a charity for people with special needs, founded by the former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson, in memory of his late daughter Anna.

In 2002, Keys and Gray raised £64,000 for charity in the ITV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Al Jazeera and Talksport
In June 2013, it was confirmed that Al Jazeera has agreed a contract with former Sky Sports football presenters, Richard Keys and Andy Gray. They will both be presenting from Doha in Qatar and will present football including the Uefa Champions League and FA Cup. Keys has stated that the technology in their studio is the best he's ever seen. Coverage will start in the 2013-14 season whilst they will continue to present their TalkSport show from Qatar.