MANCHESTER UNITED fans hammered their social media team after a tone deaf tweet made light of the game with Newcastle being played in an empty stadium.
Not only are supporters not allowed to enter St James’ Park on Saturday, viewers in the United Kingdom must fork out £14.95 to watch the match.
The 8pm kick-off is United’s first behind the new Box Office paywall set up by the Premier League last week.
Ahead of the clash, the Red Devils’ Twitter account embarrassingly joked that fans will be pleased to avoid the trip to Tyneside.
St James’ Park is known for demanding a long climb to the upper tier of the Milburn Stand and Leazes End.
Yet United fans were quick to reply that they would love to be making the climb after several months away from stadiums.
The tweet read: “At least there’s no climbing up 14 flights of stairs to get to the away end at St James’ Park for this one…
“Where are you watching #NEWMUN from?”
A laughing face emoji accompanied a world map with the kick-off times for fans worldwide, including Baghdad, Los Angeles and Manchester.
The social media team promptly deleted the tweet.
Gary Neville led supporters in making clear their anger at the joke.
The former defender wrote: “How bad is this tweet?”
United fan Ryan tweeted: “I’d rather walk up those 14 flights of stairs 50 times than pay £15 to watch it at home to be fair.”
Jack replied: “Nowhere because I’m not paying £15 straight to the Glazers pockets. I’ll watch the highlights 45 minutes after the final whistle on MOTD.”
Matty wrote online: “English fans are desperate to get into grounds. Clubs are desperate for match day money to survive. United social media team are laughing about it and telling us the kick off time in Kuala Lumpur. How out of touch can you get?”
Robert added: “Most people in the UK will not be watching because the club and the TV companies are using the pandemic as an excuse to justify charging UK fans an extra £14.95 to see the game. You should be ashamed.”
While Twitter user John commented: “How out of touch! Fans would kill to be walking up those stairs and watching a game live rather than paying £15 to watch on TV! What a poor tweet. I hate my own football club.”
