West Ham sponsors Betway have issued an apology to the club after their Twitter account labelled Michail Antonio “an accident waiting to happen” during Monday’s 2-1 loss to Chelsea.
It is understood that a conference call took place between the club and the company - their shirt sponsor since January 2015 - to discuss the tweet, with the bookmakers subsequently acknowledging in a statement that their conduct towards a commercial partner had been “inappropriate”.
“We have a team of passionate writers who provide impartial opinion across all sports,” the statement read.
“Betway acknowledges that this particular tweet is inappropriate in light of our relationship with West Ham United, of which we are extremely proud. We would like to apologies to Michail, Slaven and the club for any offence caused.”
At the time of writing Betway have not deleted the initial tweet, posted moments after Antonio had been substituted by manager Slaven Bilic. The company declined to comment further on the matter.
In the posting Betway said: “Antonio has been an accident waiting to happen in defence, West Ham fans will hope that's the end of the experiment.”
Antonio, deployed at right-back for the first three games of this season and many of the final matches of the previous campaign, endured a tough night at the hands of Eden Hazard.
The full-back’s night reached its nadir moments after half-time, when he lost possession to Cesar Azpilicueta on the edge of his box before bringing his opponent down for a penalty that Hazard converted.
