Part 1: Social Media / Defamation

With Mills having served his one month ban for his betting offence, he is now eligible for selection for Paddington United’s upcoming derby game versus local rivals Euston Athletic.

Derby day

The rivalry between Paddington and Euston is fierce, and as a result the fixture is always hotly contested on both sides, with bragging rights and pride at stake. Last season’s fixture saw seven goals scored between the two teams, with Paddington emerging victorious on that occasion. Thus, for Paddington fans, the Euston fixture is considered to be among the most important of the season.

Euston have the home advantage this time, and their fans really made it clear, flocking to the streets before kick-off in thousands on a rainy Sunday morning, raucously welcoming their heroes (and jeering their rivals) as the team busses pulled into the stadium.

Inside the stadium, Paddington fans made themselves heard from the away supporters’ end, but were drowned out for the most part by passionate singing and chanting from their Euston counterparts. This was just the type of atmosphere Mills relished; these were the games he lived for. He was no doubt fired up and ready to go.

As a tough-tackling central defensive midfielder, Mills was tasked with cutting out the Euston attack, which was held together by their talismanic “no. 10”, Connor Russel. Co-incidentally, Russel grew up in Fleetwood, just a few miles away from Mills’ hometown, Blackpool. The two had played against each other on a few occasions while coming through the ranks. They were never the best of friends.

Indeed, their seasons had got off to contrasting starts – while Mills had only just shaken the dust off a betting suspension, Russel bagged 3 goals and 5 assists in the previous 4 games, and was named Euston Athletic’s player of the month; an award which was presented to him before the match started, for all the crowd to see and applaud.

The first half of the match was evenly contested and remained goalless. However, to Mills’ credit, he made 3 crucial interceptions and one essential tackle on Russel which would otherwise have put Euston clear on goal. While the fixture was very much still in the balance, Paddington probably edged the first half.

However, Paddington were caught off guard early in the second half, with Euston breaking the deadlock thanks to a brilliantly worked finish from Connor Russel. Celebrations ensued, sending the Euston fans into a frenzy.

Mills was enraged, and more so since it was Russel who gave Euston the lead.

The sending off

Just as Paddington seemed to be getting back into the tie, Mills made a tough (and controversial) tackle on Russel in the 63rd minute. Russel certainly made the most of it and the referee darted across without hesitation to show Mills a straight red card. Mills spontaneously expressed his disbelief in the situation and exchanged a few words with both Russel and the referee, before reluctantly walking off the pitch.

Unfortunately, Mills’ red card proved to be the turning point in the game, and Paddington struggled to contain Euston Athletic’s fledging attack with just 10 men. Euston scored one more goal and the score ended 2-0 in favour of the hosts.

The aftermath

Paddington fans were enraged and there were rumours of fan violence outside the stadium, although it was contained by police with no major incidents reported.

However, Mills noticed the unrest on the streets through the window of his team bus, as he sat there reflecting on the day’s misfortune. Clearly still reeling with anger, Mills took the opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with the result on popular social networking site, Twitter, where he has 2.5 million followers.

He quickly published the following:

Minutes later, Mills received a call from his agent in a panic, asking him to delete his message off social media, which had already spread around like wild fire.

Mills deleted his post, but it was already too late. The incident was discussed by football pundits on the popular highlights show ‘Matchday’, where Mills’ temperament was heavily criticised and his character questioned. Doping and match fixing allegations formed part of the media coverage.

The next morning, his Tweet grabbed all the headlines; Mills was clearly paying for his actions, and there was no escaping the spotlight.

The fallout

Later that week, Mills was served with two letters of claim for his potentially defamatory statements on Twitter. The letters came from:

1. Russel’s lawyers, who claimed that the statement alleging he was taking steroids wrongly portrayed him as a “cheater” and “doper”, and were thus highly defamatory; and

2. The match referee’s lawyers, who claimed that the untrue allegations about corruption and match fixing would have the effect of influencing public perception of the neutrality required of him, thus were also defamatory.

Simultaneously, a women’s activist group called ‘Women Can’, publicly urged the FA to take action against Mills’ chauvinistic statement, while starting a campaign for awareness of women’s rights in sport.

Sure enough, Mills received a letter from the Football Association who sought to initiate disciplinary action against him for his behaviour off the pitch.

And just when things couldn’t get worse, this was followed by a letter from his personal sponsors, the well-known brand Neikea, who wanted to terminate their relationship with him as they believed his conduct brought the brand into disrepute.

Coming soon

Check out our series of articles (Part 2 and Part 3) exploring the wide-ranging fallout from Mills’ social media post, including defamation litigation, disciplinary proceedings and the commercial/sponsorship consequences.