Lord Sugar has defended a Twitter post in which he compared the Senegal World Cup football team to beach vendors, saying he thought it was “funny” and that it had been misinterpreted.

The Apprentice boss tweeted a picture of the sports team, which had been edited to include a picture of handbags and sunglasses laid out on sheets.

Lord Sugar
Lord Sugar’s tweet, which has now been deleted (Lord Sugar/Twitter)

Lord Sugar wrote: “I recognise some of these guys from the beach in Marbella. Multi tasking resourceful chaps.”

After responding to a few people who had criticised his post, Lord Sugar removed it.

He tweeted: “Just been reading the reaction to my funny tweet about the guy on the beach in Marbella. Seems it has been interpreted in the wrong way as offensive by a few people . Frankly I cant see that I think it’s funny. But I will pull it down if you insist.”

He previously tweeted, to a follower who asked when he would apologise: “I cant see what I have to apologise for … you are OTT … its a bloody joke.”

In another post in response to someone who had said it was “not an OK tweet”, Lord Sugar wrote: “why not it is meant to be funny … for god sake.”

His post came the morning after Senegal beat Poland 2-1 to in their first game of the World Cup in Russia.