BBC News has been forced to apologise for reporting that “Manchester United are rubbish” following a mistake behind-the-scenes.
During coverage of the Roland-Garros French Open on Tuesday, the news ticker along the bottom of the screen read: “Manchester United are rubbish."
Following reaction on social media, BBC News was forced to apologise for any offence caused.
TV Critic Scott Bryan shared the error on social media when he asked: “Errrr … What is going on with the BBC News ticker?”
Errrr… what is going on with the BBC News ticker? pic.twitter.com/fofbiGyMfs
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) May 24, 2022
BBC News forced to apologise for branding Manchester United 'rubbish'
On Tuesday’s show, the BBC offered an explanation as to why the comment appeared.
They said: “While we’re on the subject of football, some of you may have noticed something pretty unusual on the ticker that runs along the bottom of the screen with news, making a comment about Manchester United.
“I hope Manchester United fans weren’t offended by it, let me just explain what was happening.
“Behind the scenes, someone was training to learn how to use the ticker and put text on the ticker, so they were just writing random things not in earnest and that comment appeared.
“Apologies if you saw that and you were offended and you are a fan of Manchester United but certainly that was a mistake and it wasn’t supposed to appear on the screen so, that was what happened, we just thought we better explain that to you.”
UPDATE: BBC News have apologised. They say that a trainee was learning how to write text for the ticker and accidentally published them onto the BBC News Channel. pic.twitter.com/OkjPIkJAoo
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) May 24, 2022
In a thread Scott Bryan said: “I really hope the trainee doesn’t feel too bad.
“Because honestly that mistake was actually legendary and we all salute you.”
Although moments later another apparent mistake seemed to appear saying: “Weather rain everywhere,” which was shared by Scott Bryan who joked: “To be honest, they ain’t lying.”
To be honest, they ain’t lying pic.twitter.com/RMkCLuNSls
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) May 24, 2022
BBC viewers react to Manchester United error
The error did not go unnoticed as people headed to social media to joke about the situations.
One social media user said: “Poor trainee must be mortified! Imagine if that's their first day...”
Another added: “That would've been the perfect opportunity to have "Woops, sorry!" show up on the ticker. C'mon BBC at least have a bit of fun with it.”
“Brilliant. Give said trainee a permanent job and a pay rise,” joked a third.
