British soccer team deletes Rosh Hashanah tweet after backlash
Liverpool FC says holiday message removed ‘due to a number of offensive comments’
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The Liverpool FC soccer team deleted a tweet wishing Jewish fans a happy new year over the weekend, after it caused a flood of anti-Semitic responses.
The British Premier League soccer team, which is known to send messages marking the holidays of various religious communities, tweeted the message “Liverpool FC would like to wish all our Jewish supporters around the world a happy new year. #RoshHashanah,” on Friday, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, but removed it hours later, the Guardian reported.
According to a spokesman, “due to a number of offensive comments that were attached to a tweet on the official LFC Twitter account, the tweet and comments have since been removed from the account.”
On Sunday the team’s official account tweeted that Liverpool “believes in the practice of religious freedom – we seek a world in which we can send good wishes to supporters without hateful responses.”
LFC believes in the practice of religious freedom – we seek a world in which we can send good wishes to supporters without hateful responses
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) September 28, 2014
The team has some 3.22 million followers on Twitter.
The incident is being investigated by a UK police.
Racist or hate-crime incidents are not uncommon in European soccer. Earlier this month, a anti-Semitic banner was displayed in Serbia during a match between Partizan Belgrade and North London team Tottenham, which traditionally has close ties with London’s Jewish community.
The Times of Israel Community.