Twitter has issued an apology to Manchester United defender Phil Jones after a post from the company’s official UK account mocked the player.
Twitter claims “being the target of online abuse is not easy to deal with” on a dedicated help page about coping and reporting abuse.
Yet on Tuesday, the social media network engaged in such behaviour when aiming a dig at the defender, with its verified @TwitterUK account posting: “Name a better footballer than Phil Jones.”
United are believed to have complained to Twitter about the post which was later deleted, with the network apologising to both the club and player.
A Twitter spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Our aim was to showcase our new product feature, conversation controls, which allows you to select who can reply to a Tweet.
‘It was not our intention to cause upset and once we realised our mistake, we immediately deleted the Tweet.’
Phil Jones has endured a difficult campaign and even missed out on United’s Europa League finals squad with an ankle injury.
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He last played for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side in January’s FA Cup fourth round victory at Tranmere, scoring the fourth goal in the 6-0 win.
‘Phil has been following an individualised training programme during the post-lockdown period to optimise recovery from a knee problem,’ United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said last week.
‘It was a good opportunity as we had sufficient cover in defensive positions for the remaining Premier League games and he will continue to work with a fitness coach at the Aon Training Complex, while the squad are in Germany.’
