As the England Women's World Cup squad returned to home soil today, they were welcomed back by the official England Twitter account.
The tweet was a well-intentioned attempt to congratulate the players for finishing third in this year's World Cup in Canada, but it was quickly pointed out that it was a bit of an own goal.
@england ??????? Do male players return to be fathers and husbands? Own goal here!
Some people complained that it reduced England's World Cup side to gender stereotypes.
.@england @FA Seriously? Not even 48 hours, and already they're being reduced back to gender stereotypes. Shameful.
@england way to put them back into the kitchen
And, clearly, they return home as footballers – a job most of the squad hold in a professional capacity.
@england Hopefully most, if not all return to being professional club footballers today, like their less successful male counterparts.
Unfortunately, some people missed the point a little...
@england at the risk of sounding disrespectful, no other country would could a third placed team heroes.
@england how are they heroes? They finished third. It's so blatantly obvious you give them special treatment because they are women
But that theory was quickly put to bed.
@SaulJamesBrock @england we gave the 1990 World Cup team a heroes welcome and they came home 4th... http://t.co/z4Frj03bic
The England Twitter account deleted the tweet less than an hour after it was originally posted.
But the tweet had quickly gone viral and many had taken screengrabs in anticipation that it might get deleted.
oh do fuck off
The FA told BuzzFeed UK in a comment:
The full story was a wider homecoming feature attempting to reflect the many personal stories within the playing squad as has been told throughout the course of the tournament. However, we understand that an element of the story appears to have been taken out of context and the opening paragraph was subsequently revised to reflect that fact.
And someone who claims to be an FA employee has apologised via Twitter.
Sorry if I caused offence. The piece is intended to sum up a nice moment when players are reunited with their families.
He also rejected "any accusation of sexism".
I reject any accusation of sexism and human interest is a big part of any sport reporting. Id have done the same for England me, absolutely.
This puts to bed the theory that time travel played a part in the crafting of the tweet.
Welp, that's the last time @england lets a time traveler from the 1800s run their social media accounts I guess
It seemed like a pretty solid theory.
On a similar historical note, Americans were calling for another Revolutionary War.
Is this tweet grounds for another Revolutionary War? Me and my womb are ready to fight. https://t.co/EvZAWQtXJA
If the time travel theory was correct, the poster of the England tweet could have actually been a fighter from the original Revolutionary War.
The FA later posted this video of the squad returning home as footballers.
View this video on YouTube
And as England midfielder Jill Scott mentions during the video, most of the team go straight back to playing league football this weekend.
There ain't no rest for the wicked cool.
The edited version of the England homecoming blog post can be read on the FA's website.