“Manchester United are rubbish”: BBC gaffe goes viral – Here’s what actually happened

Viewers of the BBC were left shocked after a message that read, “Manchester United are rubbish” appeared on the screen while news was being telecast. Later, the channel apologised after viewers complained about the gaffe.

The incident occurred while news anchor Annita McVeigh was presenting a report on the French Open. Then a text appeared on the bottom of the screen with the above-said message, which remained for a few seconds. Soon the social media were flooded with videos and images of the moment. Many were left wondering whether it was just a joke or done intentionally.

The message was soon removed from the screen with the presenter apologising on air. “A little earlier, 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,” she was quoted as saying. She went on to add, “and I hope that Manchester United fans weren’t offended by it.”

Explaining the gaffe, she added that the mistake occurred as a trainee was learning how to work on the ticker. “Behind the scenes, someone was training to learn how to use the ticker and to put text on the ticker, so they were just writing random things,” she added further.

In a statement to the PA news agency, the BBC said: “There was a technical glitch during training with our test ticker, which rolled over to live programming for a few seconds. We apologise for any offence caused on air.”

Notably, the club that did not win a silverware since 2017, stood sixth in the top-flight table with their lowest points tally ever in the Premier League.

Since the premier league started in 1992-93, the club have won 13 times and were runners up six times, but after 2013, the club continued to struggle.