Campaigners believe that football clubs such as Manchester United and Manchester City should remove the ships from their team crests over claims they are tied to historic slavery.
The contentious topic all came to a head on Piers Morgan's Uncensored show, where the British television personality and Arsenal fan admitted he finds the airbrushing of history "exhausting".
The Guardian recently published an article titled 'Abandon ship: does this symbol of slavery shame Manchester and its football clubs?'.
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Within the article, it touches upon the many ships that travelled through Manchester’s industrial ports during the 1800’s, suggesting that slave workforces were a big contributing factor to the city's thriving economy.
It subsequently raised the question as to whether the three-masted vessels on various club crests throughout Britain hold racial undertones with ties to the British slave trade and should therefore be removed.
Piers Morgan decided to discuss the topic and quickly became embroiled in a heated back-and-forth with his guests Bonnie Greer and TalkTV contributor Paula Rhone-Adrien.
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The segment of the show had only just got underway before it turned into a full-blown shouting match with Greer and Rhone-Adrien suggesting that the removal of ships from football logos should be considered, while Morgan strongly opposed it.
"Like every one I know, I thought slavery was disgusting," Morgan said.
"I'm very glad that everyone came round to their senses that it was disgusting and that Britain actually lead the way in ending the damn thing.
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"Slavery was disgusting. However, it turns out that historians say Manchester didn't adopt ships as an emblem until 1842 – 35 years after the abolition of slavery. So they would have had nothing to do with it.
When Rhone-Adrien questioned the legitimacy of these claims, Morgan lost it.
"Little pictures of ships on a footballer's badge? Who cares?!" Morgan said.
"It's got nothing to do with it."
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He added: "Every single family in Britain, if you go back far enough, you'll have people in their past 100s of years ago, who employed slaves, almost certainly.
"And therefore, we know that was wrong then. Why should everybody today who had nothing to do with it spend their entire time apologising for it?"
The panel then addressed historical figures and events of the past, with both Greer and Rhone-Adrien encouraging the audience to acknowledge, understand and apologise for these things at times.
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In response to this, Morgan made the wild suggestion that he'd tap up people of Viking heritage for a 'sorry' for their invasion of Britain way back in the 1000s.
"Once you start this woke rampage, there is no end," he said.
Getting back onto the topic of Manchester United and City dropping their badges, Morgan said: "Why should footballers have to remove crests which contain images of ships which according to many historians were adopted as an emblem 35 years after slavery was abolished. Are all ships racist?"
To which Greer responded: "We don't know that, but we need to investigate it. Why not? What's wrong with that?"
As the segment continued on, the panellists talked over each other quite frequently as they passionately argued their case, meaning it was hard to make out what they were saying at times.
However, they did go on to mention that teams from other cities associated with slavery, including London, Liverpool and Bristol, tended to steer clear of ships on their crests.
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: Football, Premier League, Manchester City, Manchester United
