· 25 May 2025, 10:30
**Former Newcastle United co-owner Mehrdad Ghdoussi inadvertently angered a few of the Toon Army yesterday after sending 'congratulations' to Sunderland following their play-off final win.**
One of the many, many problems with posting on social media is that it's almost impossible to read the tone in which the post was intended by the author.
Sarcasm is one of the finer things in this life, but transmitting it through the written word has proved to be a harder task than anyone could have imagined.
Mehrdad Ghodoussi found that out the hard way yesterday after sending, what I thought, was a pitch-perfect back-handed compliment to Sunderland after the Mackems scraped promotion back to the Premier League after their little adventure in League One.
> [](https://twitter.com/ghodoussi/status/1926313773280776456)
Mehrdad Ghodoussi's message was spot on if you ask us
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While there probably was a bit of genuine sentiment in his post, it was pretty obvious what the real intent was behind Ghodoussi's post.
> "Congratulations 👏🏻👏🏻 @SunderlandAFC make sure you train hard over the summer….you’ll need the practice before those derby fixtures 😉 #HWTL #NUFC"
Mehrdad is clearly saying that they are miles off the level of Newcastle United, but a lot of Newcastle fans couldn't get past the 'congratulations' part. We get it, it's tribal, but honestly, some of the replies to his post are unbelievable. Some 'fans' even telling the man who saved our club to F off? Get a grip. If you're too stupid to understand subtext, maybe you shouldn't be on social media.
There's always the minority that has to make us all look bad
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Mehrdad had to post a follow-up stating that it is sarcasm, just to try and put a halt to the hate. Although we have to applaud him for not just deleting his post and standing by it.
We know it's only the minority, but the internet gobshites fans really do give us a bad name at times.
I guess it's just lucky that every fanbase has them, so nobody is immune.