• Players body seeks redress from comedian over awards night • 'We made it clear that swearing or racist references were out'

The Professional Footballers' Association wants the comedian Reginald D Hunter to repay his fee for performing at its annual awards ceremony on Sunday night, claiming he ignored a specific brief not to use racial humour.

Hunter, a 44-year-old black American, used the word "nigger" during his set on Sunday and the PFA chairman, Clarke Carlisle, admitted on Monday that he was "embarrassed" while watching the set.

The PFA deputy chief executive, Bobby Barnes, has since revealed that the organisation will look to recoup the fee paid to Hunter. "We are in discussions with our lawyer and our lawyer is in discussion with the London Speaker Bureau, who we booked him through," said Barnes.

"Whatever he was paid was too much. We are obviously very upset, because he was briefed. We are very aware that we have a very diverse audience there. I can't think of a redeeming feature where you could say that was positive because I actually think the whole performance from start to finish was dreadful," he added in the Daily Telegraph.

A PFA statement released on Monday evening read: "In a conference call with Reginald and three members of the London Speaker Bureau through which he was recruited, it was outlined the make-up of our audience which would be widely diverse, including around 25% of women and ages ranging from 18 to 80.

" It was made absolutely clear that swearing or any racist references were to be avoided. Therefore we were totally dismayed that the performance was the exact opposite of our requirement."

The London Speaker Bureau issued a statement confirming the PFA's version of events and apologised for "any offence caused by the performance".

Carlisle admitted it was a "huge mistake" for the PFA to book Hunter after two years when high-profile racism incidents have made the headlines. Luis Suárez was banned for eight matches in December 2011 for racially abusing Patrice Evra while the former England captain John Terry was suspended for four games by the Football Association last September for abusing Anton Ferdinand.

However, Hunter's response on the social networking site Facebook suggested that he was surprised at the furore. His photo album of the PFA awards night was titled "Irony's Annual Night Off".

Hunter is a comedian known for using racial humour and has appeared a number of times on the BBC political satire programme Have I Got News For You.