EXCLUSIVE: Sports Direct blasted after selling t-shirt of murderer and neo-Nazi's band

TOP leisurewear retailer Sports Direct has withdrawn a t-shirt featuring a notorious murderer, arsonist and self-confessed Neo-Nazi from sale.

Black metal, Norwegian Black Metal, Count Grishnakh, Burzum, Sports Direct, Tracksuits, leisure wear, leisurewear, Mayhem, Euronymous, neo-Nazi, neo-NVarg Vikernes and the Sports Direct website[GETTY]

The store's website gave shoppers the chance to buy a t-shirt for the controversial act Burzum.

The act was a solo project of Norwegian Black Metal musician Varg Vikernes, who is infamous for murdering former bandmate Oystein 'Euronymous' Aarseth in 1993 and espousing Nazi ideology during his time in prison. 

Vikernes played bass for the band Mayhem while his victim Aarseth was the group's guitarist

Vikernes killed Aarseth at his Oslo flat following a row after Aarseth, Mayhem's guitarist, closed his Helvete record store in the Norwegian capital.

He was sentenced to 21 years in prison - the maximum allowed by Norwegian law - and was released in 2009.

While he was in prison, Vikernes, 41, continued to record music, as well as writing for a number of publications, including Norwegian neo-Nazi magazine Filosofem.

Black metal, Norwegian Black Metal, Count Grishnakh, Burzum, Sports Direct, Tracksuits, leisure wear, leisurewear, Mayhem, Euronymous, neo-Nazi, neo-NThe Burzum t-shirt for sale on Sports Direct's website [IG]

In an interview in 2005, he said heavy metal had a 'n***** culture' and also said: "Why would the 'Santa Claus' tradition be good to African or Asian children, when the 'Santa Claus' figure is a perversion of an ultra-racist European deity, best known as Heimdallr or Belobog, who only let the fair-haired, fair-skinned and fair-eyed children have a chance at getting a gift in the first place? 

"The non-European races are rejects as far as he is concerned."

Vikernes has since distanced himself from neo-Nazism, saying his politics are instead 'Odalist' and that he supports democracy and he rejects Christianity.

However, Vikernes was today given a six-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of €8,000 (£2,385) by a French court.

He was found guilty of incitement to discrimination and glorifying war crimes in relation to posts on his website.

His website includes a range of offensive posts, including one which states: "The Australian aborigines were and still are too stupid to understand that there are no spirits. The Negroes and other inferior races were and still are too stupid to understand that there are no gods or a god either."

Black metal, Norwegian Black Metal, Count Grishnakh, Burzum, Sports Direct, Tracksuits, leisure wear, leisurewear, Mayhem, Euronymous, neo-Nazi, neo-NRacist murderer Varg Vikernes [IG]

Vikernes, who was known as Count Grishnakh - after a character in Lord of the Rings - during his time in Mayhem, had also been involved with a spate of arson attacks on wooden churches in Norway.

The t-shirt features the burned out ruins of a church which Vikernes was charged with the arson of, but acquitted by a jury.

Vikernes - whose real first name is, ironically, Kristian - now lives in France with his wife and three children.

Sports Directs decision to sell Burzum t-shirts was criticised on Twitter.

Tom Dare, a reporter at extreme metal magazine Terrorizer, wrote: '"They now sell Burzum t-shirts at Sports Direct. Stop this planet, I want to get off" while feminist blogger Zoe Stavri tweeted "Yo @SportsDirectUK why are you selling t-shirts where the royalties will go to fascist Varg Vikernes?"

Sports Direct have declined to comment on the matter.

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