Sports

Sunderland Paper Reassigns Reporter Who Facebooked Nasty Things about Team Six Years Ago

Nobody manufactures a tempest in a teapot quite like the English. The country’s soccer fans are zealous practitioners. And particularly adept in the dark arts of controversy-mongering are supporters of regional clubs who have collectively decided that they are consistently victimized by slightly larger rivals.

Recently, the Sunderland Echo appointed a new beat writer to cover the Sunderland soccer team. Said writer, Liam Kennedy, had said some very dumb things about Sunderland on Facebook six years ago, because he’s a Newcastle United fan. And the Magpies hate them Black Cats.

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“Hopes Joey Barton tears Lee Cattermole a new arsehole on Saturday morning,” he posted in Aug. 2011. “#scummylittlebarsteward.”

“Fucking hate mackems me [sic],” he wrote in Dec. 2010, referring to the nickname for Sunderlanders. Then he responded to his own post with “Mate I fucking hate the scummy cunts.”

Because on the internet what is dead may never die, all of this quickly resurfaced after Kennedy was hired from a newspaper in Scotland. And so the Echo faced enormous pressure from readers and fans to find a new beat guy, despite Kennedy’s apology.

“Looking back at those comments I’m ashamed,” he wrote. “It embarrasses me to see my name against such abhorrent language online. The pathetic, infantile posts were penned before I was a professional journalist. I am a different person now. It was a long time ago.

“I was young, daft and trying to be clever. It turns out, putting things like that online was not so clever at all. … I’m a Newcastle United fan, that I cannot hide. But that does not mean I cannot cover Sunderland AFC with all of the commitment and passion I did in Dundee, as well as elsewhere across the UK. It will all be done without bias, with no malice and with 100% impartiality. You have that guarantee. I am offering a whole-hearted apology to readers who are offended and angry. I hope you will support the work I do in a job that I am extremely honored to have.”

But because humans are petty and vengeful, it wasn’t enough.

On Monday, the Echo’s editor posted a note declaring that Kennedy would be reassigned. Because he was young and mad online once, he lost his gig. “For a number of reasons, the decision has now been made that Liam will no longer be covering SAFC,” the note read.

Sure, “a number of reasons.”

The Sunderland Echo has apparently hemorrhaged more than half its circulation in the span of four years. Its soccer coverage is one of the few assets likely keeping the paper in business.