United Rugby Championship: Social media agency deal terminated after TikTok post

The United Rugby Championship (URC) has moved swiftly to act following a social media blunder by sacking the agency running its TikTok account.

The agency appeared to make fun of Cardiff wing Aled Summerhill after he suffered concussion in a recent game against the Lions in South Africa.

Posting a video which had a caption of sleeping and laughing emojis next to Summerhill was widely criticised by rugby followers around the world.

There has since been an investigation from the United Rugby Championship and subsequently the content agency’s contract has now been ended.

“The United Rugby Championship has apologised to Aled Summerhill of Cardiff Rugby after a social media post focusing on an incident that led to a concussive injury was posted to our official TikTok account,” read a statement on URC’s official website.

“Injuries, and in particular head injuries, are always a serious matter requiring sensitivity and this post was in contravention of the URC’s values and editorial guidelines.

“The oversight processes around publishing to our official channels have rigorous protocols but in this instance unfortunately they were not followed as a result of an individual error. The post has been removed and actions have been taken to ensure this never occurs again.

“The URC would like to extend its apology to Aled’s family, friends, team-mates, his club and anyone else who rightly found the relevant post to be inappropriate.

“The URC has investigated the events that led to this post with the content agency contracted to post to the URC TikTok account and as a result the supplier’s relationship with URC has been terminated.”

Cardiff Rugby said in a statement on Wednesday: “The video post made light of a collision against Emirates