A journalist from the regional British newspaper The Sunderland Echo has been banned from reporting on the city’s English Premier League team Sunderland AFC after old social media posts of him rubbishing the team’s fans were discovered.

Sports scoop Liam Kennedy (pictured below) has had his duties severely restricted after six-year-old posts he made on Facebook were discovered were he used unsavoury language in reference to Sunderland fans. Kennedy also outed himself as a supporter of Sunderland’s arch-rival team Newcastle United.

Kennedy has had to publicly apologise to the fans and to Sunderland Echo readers. The apology, which you can read in full here, stated: “The pathetic, infantile posts were penned before I was a professional journalist. I am a different person now. It was a long time ago.”

However, the apology certainly didn’t assuage Sunderland fans’ fury and the editor of The Sunderland Echo, Joy Davis, said she had no other option to remove the budding scribe from his post following a flood of complaints to the newspaper. Davis described the affair as “very serious” and “for a number of reasons, the decision has now been made that Liam will no longer be covering SAFC.”

And it’s been a tough year for Sunderland fans all round. Their team’s currently sitting equal last on the English Premier League ladder with four losses and a draw from its first five games of the season.