A Conservative MP has been ridiculed on social media after posting a good luck message to the Welsh women's football team in the Euros — despite them failing to qualify.
Virginia Crosbie, who has represented Ynys Môn since 2019, posted to Facebook on Wednesday: "The 2022 UEFA Women's Euro championship is due to kick off this week at Wembley Stadium. I would like to wish all the Welsh squad, their coach Jayne Ludlow MBE and all the team the best of luck in the championship. I am a keen advocate of all sports, I play in the parliamentary cross party tennis team, and I personally sponsor several teams across Ynys Mon in football, rugby and even local world transplant games athletes."
Later that evening the statement was mocked on Twitter by the Blogdroed football page, which wrote: "Great post from our MP on Facebook … apart from the fact that *checks notes* the Euros opened in Old Trafford tonight, *checks notes* Gemma Grainger replaced Jayne Ludlow as Wales coach in 2021 and *checks notes* Wales haven’t actually qualified she’s … errr … spot on!"
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More than 500 people 'liked' and shared the tweet about the gaffe. The Anglesey MP, who grew up in the Essex village of Tiptree, told WalesOnline it was "just a training exercise with my staff" which was "posted by mistake".
Among those to comment was Noel Mooney, chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, who posted the 'see no evil' monkey emoji which is often used to express embarrassment. John Carrier, an expert in Welsh women's football, tweeted: "Oh dear, an embarrassing moment from Wales." And "cringeworthy" was the verdict from Podcast Pêl-droed, a Wales football podcast.
When we asked Ms Crosbie for a response, she blamed a staff training exercise for the blunder.
She insisted we publish this response in full, referring to an error in a Liberal Democrat press release which we had published. She said: "This is just a training exercise with my staff from months ago that was posted by mistake for a few minutes. Quite frankly haven't you got anything better to write about? Considering that your publication doesn't know that parliamentary private secretaries are unpaid and therefore not due any compensation for resigning from the government rather puts this into perspective doesn't it?"
You can read more about Euro 2022 here.
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