Lord Sugar. Photo: Twitter.

British-Jewish business icon Lord Alan Sugar on Thursday poked fun at the chairman of Wigan soccer club, Dave Whelan, after the latter was charged by the Football Association for making offensive comments about Jewish and Chinese people.

“Wigan Dave Whelan been charged by the FA,following his comments about Jewish & Chinese people.His 100’s of Jewish friends to give evidence,” Sugar wrote on Twitter, referring to Whelan’s defense of his racist comments in an interview on Sky News. “I would never insult a Jewish person. I have got hundreds and hundreds of Jewish friends. I’ve got loads of Chinese friends and I would never, ever insult the Chinese,” the soccer boss said.

Whelan’s initial controversial comments were made during a recent interview with The Guardian. The newspaper reported Whelan said “Jewish people chase money more than everybody else.” Whelan also allegedly defended Wigan manager Malky Mackay’s use of the term “chink” to describe a Chinese person.

Although Whelan insisted that he was misquoted in the interview, he has since apologized for his remarks.

The FA’s charge against Whelan was for the “aggravated breach” of FA Rule E3 [2] which bans references “to ethnic origin and/or race and/or nationality and/or religion or belief” that are “abusive and/or insulting and/or constitute improper conduct and/or bring the game into disrepute.”

Whelan has until Dec. 5 to respond to the charge.