Marco Gabbiadini has been left furious by Sunderland’s latest PR disaster ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup match.
Sunderland fans were left ecstatic when they were drawn Newcastle United in the FA Cup third round last month, preparing for the first Wear-Tyne derby in almost eight years.
At the time, the Magpies had just beaten Manchester United and Chelsea, as well as drawing to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
Things had looked a lot more hopeful for Sunderland in recent weeks though, with Newcastle picking up only one win in their last eight games.
While it looked to be the visitors that were absolutely dreading it, the Sunderland board’s recent questionable antics may well have given them the upper-hand.
Sunderland had already been criticised for their decision to give Newcastle the maximum 6000 tickets, as well as forcing Sunderland season-ticket holders to move from the North Stand to allow the away fans to occupy their seats.
It was made even worse when it was revealed that the Magpies would also take the Black Cats Bar, with Sunderland’s memorabilia set to be covered up.
However, things took a dramatic turn for the worst when photos of Newcastle slogans and signage plastered around the Black Cats Bar was posted on social media.
One example was Sunderland’s ‘ha’way’ had been crossed out and replaced with ‘howay’, while another sign saying ‘keep the black & white flying high’ had been stuck above the bar.
Fans were left extremely angry and the club eventually took everything down and put out a statement apologising, before Kyril Louis-Dreyfus posted his own apology message on Instagram, claiming he was ‘disgusted and hurt’.
The frenzy didn’t stop there though and it was soon picked up across the media, with Marco Gabbiadini taking to BBC Radio Newcastle to share his frustrations.
The former striker labelled the error ’embarrassing’, saying: “We’ve got a group who’ve taken over the club who you would think, after the last lot we’ve had, would have a bit more knowledge of how football works,” he said.
“There are people from the region on the board. The owner, his club was involved in one of the biggest rivalries in French football with his family’s club, and we’ve opened ourselves up to this. I don’t believe it if I’m honest.
“It’s embarrassing. This will be mentioned by Newcastle fans in 50 years’ time.”
Can the Sunderland board be forgiven?
We have seen some horrible decisions made by the club over the years, and the current regime have already made a number of mistakes with ticketing and kit release disasters. However, this is quite simply unforgivable.
According to Keith Downie, Sunderland allowed Newcastle into the Black Cats bar to ‘cover and protect’ the current branding, while they were expecting their decoration to be ‘neutral’.
I don’t actually know what would be worse – for the club to be that naive and stupid to allow them into the bar and expect them to put ‘neutral’ signage up, or if they actually know all about it in the first place.
It’s a huge error made by the club and one that we really didn’t need days before the game. It is likely to cause a lot of bitterness and distraction tomorrow, but we need to ignore it for now and give the lads our full support.