TAM Cowan has been given the red card by the BBC over remarks about women's football in a column for the Daily Record newspaper.

The presenter of BBC Radio Scotland's Off The Ball show spoke of the sport as a "turgid spectacle", described players as "blokes" and suggested that a football stadium should be torched in order to "cleanse" it after it played host to a women's match.

On its website, the Daily Record said Cowan's comments should be taken with a "large pinch of salt" but, unsurprisingly, they provoked a storm of criticism from the many who fail to find the humour in outdated, sexist and belittling remarks.

The aim of a newspaper columnist is often to provoke, by perhaps articulating controversial views in a trenchant manner - and those offended can show their displeasure by refusing to buy the product.

But the BBC is under ­scrutiny after a series of scandals. A furore over the casual sexism that still surrounds women in sport was triggered earlier this year after presenter John Inverdale commented that Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli was "never going to be a looker". The BBC has also made much of championing women's football by screening live World Cup games on BBC Alba.

To continue to employ Cowan, who described the decision to broadcast "such tosh" as "scraping the bottom of the barrel", would be highly questionable. While he did not make his remarks in his BBC role, the corporation cannot ignore such comments by a high-profile presenter of one of its programmes.