EDDIE McGuire has apologised for an on-air gaffe referencing Sydney Swans star Adam Goodes and King Kong, and has called a media conference for Wednesday afternoon.

His Triple M radio co-host Luke Darcy was talking about the launch of a new stage show in Melbourne when the Collingwood president mentioned the dual Brownlow medallist.

Swans 'bewildered by McGuire's King Kong comment

It comes after McGuire played a key role in mending the damage following a 13-year-old Collingwood fan racially vilifying the Swans hero as an 'ape' at the MCG on Friday night.

Immediately after the match, McGuire met with Goodes in the Swans rooms and apologised for the incident.

Players and officials respond to on-air gaffe

North Melbourne midfielder Daniel Wells said he found McGuire's comments offensive, while Goodes and West Coast's Nic Naitanui responded on Twitter.

"I feel for Adam," Wells said. "He's obviously been through a lot the last couple of days and the last couple of weeks and hopefully it hasn't affected him too much.

"Obviously I'm a little bit disappointed about it. He [McGuire] did a fair bit of work after that incident with Adam last week.

"To his credit, he came down and handled it really well … but to make a silly comment like that, a bit tongue in cheek, hopefully it doesn't undo all the work he's done in the past.

"It just goes to show that tongue in cheek [or not] you're treading a fine line really. You've just got to be careful."

Wednesday morning's on-air conversation played out as follows:

Darcy: What a great promo that is for King Kong.
McGuire: Get Adam Goodes down for it do you reckon?
Darcy: No I wouldn't have thought so, absolutely not.
McGuire: You can see them doing that can't you?
Darcy: Who?
McGuire: Goodsey.
Darcy: What's that?
McGuire: You know with the ape thing, the whole thing, I'm just saying the pumping him up and mucking around and all that sort of stuff.

listen to ‘Eddie McGuire's on-air gaffe’ on Audioboo

Soon afterwards, McGuire returned to air to clarify his comments.

"Just to clear up when we were talking about King Kong there and I was mumbling my way through about Goodsey.

"I was trying to say imagine the old days of trying to get people in for publicity.

"I mumbled my way through that, so anyone who thought that I was having a go or being a smart alec, I take that back.

"Neither do I, I was that exhausted this morning, so apologies for that.

"I was off on a tangent somewhere. Just in case people think 'What the hell's he on about?' I've got no idea either."

Goodes tweeted about the McGuire comments on Wednesday morning, as did Naitanui.