New England Women manager Phil Neville deleted his Twitter account after certain tweets were found. He’s since issued an apology and the FA have another fiasco on their hands.
If Neville’s appointment as England manager wasn’t farcical enough already, it’s just gotten a whole lot worse. Not long after he was confirmed as manager, people went through his old Tweets, and dug up something dubious.
An old Tweet in 2012 read: “Morning men couple of hours cricket be4 work sets me up nicely for the day.” When asked why he only spoke about men, he responded: “When I said morning men I thought the women would of been busy preparing breakfast/getting kids ready/making the beds-sorry morning women!”
He has since deleted his Twitter account. The FA also admitted they knew about the tweets beforehand, but didn’t think to address his comments until they were made to. After the scandal with Mark Sampson, the last thing the FA needed was another controversy.
[1/2] Statement from Phil Neville: “Following comments made a number of years ago I would like to clarify that they were not and are not a true and genuine reflection of either my character or beliefs, and would like to apologise.
— FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) January 24, 2018
[2/2] “I am fully aware of my responsibilities as the England Women’s Head Coach and am immensely proud and honoured to have been given the role. I am now looking forward to the future and will work tirelessly to try and help bring success to the team.”
— FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) January 24, 2018
It’s difficult to justify appointing Neville in the first place without allegations of sexism to contend with as well. It looks more and more like the FA have taken the only person willing to do the job.
As for Neville himself, he’s learned that old comments on social media do not disappear and can crop up at the worst times. It’s a lesson that a lot of people on social media could stand to learn so they can think twice before posting something stupid.