Dave Whelan has been accused of a “dangerous level of ignorance” after making a reference to “chingalings” during a newspaper interview that was intended as an apology to the Jewish community for previous antisemitic remarks.

The Wigan Athletic owner told the Guardian last month that “Jewish people chase money more than everybody else” and defended the use of the word “chink” to describe Chinese people, comments that resulted in a Football Association charge. Whelan apologised for any offence caused but has yet to respond to the governing body.

The FA is aware of Whelan’s latest comment, which came at the end of a lengthy interview with the Jewish Telegraph. During an attempted apology, the 78-year-old said: “When I was growing up we used to call the Chinese ‘chingalings’. We weren’t being disrespected [sic]. We used to say: ‘We’re going to eat in chingalings.’ The Chinese weren’t offended by that. That was the name everyone in Wigan called it [the first Chinese cafe in Wigan].”

His comments come less than three weeks after Wigan controversially appointed Malky Mackay as their manager. Mackay is under investigation by the FA for alleged racism and antisemitism over email and text exchanges while in charge of Cardiff City, with one message allegedly describing Vincent Tan, the Cardiff owner, as “a chink”.

The British Chinese Project, a voluntary organisation that highlights the presence of the Chinese community in Britain, said Whelan’s comments were highly offensive. A statement read: “Once again, Mr Whelan, rather distressingly, believes he can speak on behalf of Chinese people. His comments are extremely unhelpful in our fight to end discrimination and racism against Chinese people in the UK. Once more, he is using a public platform to tell a wide audience what Chinese people find offensive.

“Contrary to what Mr Whelan may believe, the vast majority of our community deem the terms ‘chink’ and ‘chingaling’ highly offensive. For many in the Chinese community these words hold deep emotional resonance, as they are often used in conjunction with racial violence, harassment and hate crimes.

“Therefore, to say that ‘there is nothing wrong’ with using such terms or that Chinese people ‘aren’t offended’ by their use, demonstrates a dangerous level of ignorance. We have noticed that Mr Whelan has truly gone out of his way to apologise to the Jewish community, it is a shame that the same level of apology hasn’t been extended to the Chinese community. We can assure him that we are just as angry and just as offended as the Jewish community.”

Whelan, the founder of JJB Sports, has until next Friday to respond to the FA misconduct charge. In the Jewish Telegraph interview, which claims a Jewish charity in Manchester called off a fundraising event Whelan was due to attend, he reiterated his regret if anyone was offended by his comments last month, saying: “I apologise profusely to anyone who has taken offence because I would never offend the Jewish community under any circumstances. I have nothing but respect for them. They’re hard-working people, they’re honest people.”

Meanwhile, a Wigan statement published online on Friday, looking ahead to their home match against Norwich City, read: “Wigan Athletic are reminding supporters that it is illegal to swear or use racist, homophobic or sexist language. The club has a zero tolerance on this and any supporter found to be using inappropriate language runs the risk of being ejected from the match.”