Perth’s Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas has fired back at accusations he compared the Australian Open women’s finals to a “reserves game”.
At a press conference on Saturday to announce his plans to run in Western Australia’s 2025 state election, Mr Zempilas appeared to be caught on camera making a series of offhand comments to a Channel Nine reporter.
Part of the exchange spread on social media in which he appears to disparage the women’s tennis final as a “reserves game”.
Commentators were quick to accused the well-known figure of misogyny.
But Mr Zempilas said the video had been edited and wrongly construed his remarks.
I need to make absolutely clear the conversation I had with @9NewsPerth reporter @GenoveseMichael today is being reported totally incorrectly,” Mr Zempilas shared on X, formerly Twitter.
“It is totally disingenuous and flat out wrong to suggest otherwise and I will not be accused of having said something I did not say.”
Sharing a longer version of the exchange, Mr Zempilas said he was “referring to reading the news against that broadcast”.
9NEWS reporter Michael Genovese backed the Lord Mayor up, sayingthe conversations was “taken completely out of context”.
“@BasilZempilas was referring to the tennis and the news going head to head.”
Aside from being the City of Perth’s Lord Mayor, Mr Zempilas is a long time sports commentator and employee of SevenWest Media.