Blackpool player apologising and getting judged for historic tweets 'ridiculous'

This came after his teammate Jake Daniels revealed he is gay, becoming the UK's first male professional footballer to come out since Justin Fashanu.

Ekpiteta, who has been the Tangerines' interim captain for most of the season, took to social media to apologise for the tweets, stating he was 'embarrassed' by the posts but they don't 'reflect the values I hold now'.

Ex-Crystal Palace chairman Jordan insists that it is 'unnecessary' to dig up things that were said in the past and players 'shouldn't be judged' for things they posted on social media a long time ago.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," Jordan told talkSPORT. "You're making observations from ten years ago, even if they're silly observations.

"I don't know what he has or hasn't said, and obviously he said enough to put himself in a situation to deal with.

"There was a Middlesbrough player recently that said things when he was 13 or 14 years of age - it's just absurd.

"It's unnecessary. People make mistakes. They say things when they're very young.

"Everybody in this world that we live in, if we're all held by that standard, then we're all going to be bang in trouble."

Asked whether he needed to apologise, Jordan added: "Given the fact that the circumstances are specific to a player that a lot of media fuss is being made over that wanted to bring his sexuality into the public domain, then he probably did.

"Does he need to be judged? He was a 17-year-old boy that said a very stupid set of things.

"You wonder why these kids would post things on social media because it's a public domain.

"But if they've got these silly little thoughts at 17 years of age, I don't think they're particularly relevant ten years later.

"He's put to bed the irrelevance of that subject matter by saying his own view on what he feels about the young man, and what he feels about his own contribution to a ridiculous set of observations from ten years ago.

"People talk about people being able to change and we live in a redemptive society, yet we dig out tweets from ten years ago to make somebody look bad."