Charlton scores own goal in season ticket gaffe

Oh dear, Charlton Athletic.

As the English Football League prepares for round two of the 2016/17 season, League One side, Charlton Athletic, managed to score a huge PR own goal today (Friday 12th) and learnt the danger of social media virality. Hopefully it’s a lesson that others can learn from to avoid a similar battering.

This morning, Charlton season ticket holder — and Twitter user — James Maddison tweeted a photo of a letter he’d received from the club’s duty safety officer, stating, “certain comments placed on social media websites by yourself have been not particularly constructive.” The letter continued, “Whilst we recognise that everyone is entitled to their own personal opinion it is not helpful when inflammatory comments are posted on such websites.”

The crucial part of the letter goes on to say that as a result, his season ticket for the upcoming year is not only conditional, but that he’d have to collect it from the stadium. Furthermore, Maddison would also have to sign an ‘Agreed Behavioural Contract (ABC)where he would confirm he would no longer post “derogatory or inflammatory comments regarding the Club or people representing the club in the future on any social media website”.

Needless to say, the resulting backlash against Charlton on news websites and social media has been severe. So far, the original tweet containing the photo of the letter has been retweeted nearly 1,800 times, and liked 649 times. The photo itself has also been embedded into various news articles online.

This afternoon, in a lengthy written statement linked to by its own Twitter account, the club said that Maddison was the only season ticket holder to receive the letter, and that he’d received his ticket after he made an apology. This was a meagre and weak attempt to put out the PR crisis of the day and, of course, it did nothing to extinguish the fire: Charlton trended on Twitter in the UK for all the wrong reasons.

So, here are some lessons for those organisations looking to avoid a similar fate:

1. Make sure people across the organisation realise that any external communication runs the risk of making it onto the web. Even snail mail can find itself online.
2. Your customers have a voice and, thanks to social media, those who enjoy or dislike your product have the means — and the right — to be more vocal to more people than ever before. Rapid and empathetic responses to issues raised over social channels is essential to minimise the effect of negative sentiment online.
3. The written word can all too easily be taken out of context by reporting media. In times of crisis, make sure you have spokespeople available for the press, don’t rely on lengthy written statements to do the job — snippets of the copy can skew the message.