Iker Casillas has blamed a “hacked account” for a tweet which announced he was gay to his nearly 10 million followers.
The former Real Madrid goalkeeper apologised to the LGBT community after a tweet from his account which read: “I hope you respect me, I’m gay,” to which his ex-Spain teammate Carles Puyol replied: “It’s time to tell our story, Iker.”
The tweets quickly went viral and spawned media reports on what would have been the highest profile footballer to have ever publicly come out as gay.
Spanish outlet AS suggested Casillas’s tweet might have been an ill-judged joke in response to constant rumours about his lovelife. But it was soon deleted, with Casillas claiming they were not his own words.
“Hacked account,” he tweeted. “Luckily everything in order. Apologies to all my followers. And of course, more apologies to the LGBT community.”
Puyol, however, admitted he had made a “clumsy joke”.
“I was wrong,” he tweeted. “Sorry for a clumsy joke without any bad intentions and absolutely out of place. I understand that it may have hurt sensitivities. All my respect and support to the LGTBIQA+ community.”
The 41-year-old Casillas left Real to join Porto in 2015. He suffered a minor heart attack in 2019 and announced his retirement from professional football in August the following year.
