BBC Apologizes After "Manchester United Are Rubbish" Headline Is Shown On TV News Show

The British Broadcasting Corporation has issued an apology "for any offense caused" after the headline "Manchester United are rubbish" appeared on its BBC News channel.

The four-word update popped up on a news ticker at the bottom of the screen during a live broadcast on Tuesday morning.

This came less than 48 hours after United had lost 1-0 at Crystal Palace to finish their worst season in Premier League history.

But the message about United was not meant for broadcast. Nor was "Weather rain everywhere", which followed it.

Presenter Annita McVeigh explained that the incident was the result of someone being trained to operate the ticker and that the message had only been intended for test purposes.

Addressing viewers live, she said: "A little earlier, some of you may have noticed something pretty unusual on the ticker that runs along the bottom of the screen with news making a comment about Manchester United, and I hope that Manchester United fans weren't offended by it.

"Let me just explain what was happening: behind the scenes, someone was training to learn how to use the ticker and to put text on the ticker, so they were just writing random things not in earnest and that comment appeared.

"So apologies if you saw that and you were offended and you're a fan of Manchester United.

"But certainly that was a mistake and it wasn't meant to appear on the screen. So that was what happened, we just thought we'd better explain that to you."

An official BBC statement later added: "There was a technical glitch during training with our test ticker, which rolled over to live programming for a few seconds.

"We apologized for any offense caused on air."

United recorded their lowest ever EPL points total of 58 this season - 35 below the tally accumulated by champions Manchester City.

A sixth-place finish saw United miss out on Champions League qualification.

They will instead compete in the Europa League next season.