Twitter has become an incredibly important tool for major professional football clubs.
The social media platform provides an opportunity to post exclusive content, provide updates and connect with fans all over the world in a variety of different languages.
One of the latest trends to have caught on seems to be announcing player signings, departures and kit launches in increasingly bizarre ways – Sevilla kidnapping Jesus Navas automatically springs to mind.
The responsibility of dreaming up ideas for a club usually falls to a designated social media coordinator, and it’s safe to say they don't always get it spot on.
They often make themselves easy to poke fun at, but in truth, official Twitter feeds are a valuable part of supporting any team, great or small.
However, filling a Twitter feed with material that will resonate with fans has recently been compounded by another potentially more sinister challenge.
While hacking has long been a destructive force in the online world, football clubs have been largely immune to any major harm on the digital front.
That could be set to change to some degree following a spate of attacks on Twitter accounts owned by players, clubs and other figures.
The latest incident is arguably the most significant yet considering it involves two of the fiercest rivals on the planet in Real Madrid and Barcelona.
REAL MADRID HACKED
During the early hours of Saturday morning, an intruder gained access to the Los Blancos’ Twitter and wasted no time in stirring up some trouble with their sworn enemy.
A post on Real's Twitter at 5:30am welcomed new signing Lionel Messi to the Spanish capital, accompanied with a video of the Argentine scoring in a recent El Classico.
The tweet – which raked up 27,000 retweets just 45 minutes after going up, read: ”Benvingut Messi! ¡Bienvenido Messi! Welcome Messi! Bienvenue Messi! #Messi.”
Another bogus post also announced the sale of Karim Benzema before asking fans who should replace the prolific striker.
The hacker wrote, per the Mirror: ”We sold Benzema, do you want us to buy any player?”
The group thought to be behind the attack has hacked several high-profile accounts over the last year.
They signed off their latest effort with a series of tweets claiming responsibility, including: "Internet security is s*** and we proved that.”
Real managed to delete the offending tweets from their Spanish and English feeds 90 minutes after they went live, though one remained on their Japanese account for another half an hour.
The posts were little more than tongue-in-cheek digs from a Barcelona fan, but they will do little to ease the subsequent embarrassment around the Bernabeu.