A soccer player's old social media posts came back to haunt him when Spanish champions Barcelona hired and fired him on the same day.
Sergi Guardiola, 24, made the dream move Monday from AD Alcorcon to the Catalan club's B side -- which is renowned for cultivating future international stars -- the Spanish national daily sport newspaper Marca reports.
But tweets posted from his account during the 2013 El Clásico clash between Barcelona and arch rivals Real Madrid were soon unearthed.
They included insults to his new team, its star player Lionel Messi and the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain as a whole.
"I wouldn't have Messi in my team; he spoils the way the team plays," one of the messages attributed to Guardiola states. "Up Real Madrid, and the hell with Catalonia."
The midfielder's contract was terminated Monday night, according to the BBC.
"FC Barcelona has decided to terminate the contract signed with Sergi Guardiola, after finding that he had published offensive tweets about the club and Catalonia," a Barcelona statement said, according to the news agency AFP.
Guardiola, who is no relation to the former Barcelona player and manager Pep, later claimed a friend had posted the tweets as a joke.
"I want to make clear I didn't write those tweets. A friend took my phone and did it. It's a misunderstanding," he told the Spanish radio station Cope. "The tweets are from 2013, a joke from a friend, I didn't even know the tweets existed."
Guardiola said that he understood the club's decision. "Now I’m going home, we’ll see what happens,” he added.
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