Andrés Iniesta kicks Andrés Iniesta out of Instagram account in mix-up

20 Jul 2015

While looking nothing like the Spain and FC Barcelona playmaker, Madrid-based Andrés Iniesta found that the footballer with the same name had unexpectedly taken over his account details without warning.

The less-famous Iniesta, who describes himself as someone who “likes to take pictures of his kids, yummy food and interesting buildings in Madrid”, suddenly found himself locked out of his Instagram account without warning after being told he infringed the service’s terms of use.

According to his post on Medium, Iniesta, who uses the handle @ainiesta on Instagram, discovered he was locked out on holidays but upon his return found that the footballer – one of the biggest names in the game – suddenly appeared on Instagram with his already-claimed handle.

While probably oblivious to what was happening, the famous Iniesta continued to post on his page while the less-famous Iniesta’s friends noticed that they suddenly had a new and unfamiliar follower with the same name as their friend.

“I’m not a celebrity, and I don’t want to be one,” he explained following unsuccessful attempts to get Instagram to fix the issue. “I just don’t like things being taken away from me.”

Five hours after he had posted the blog post to Medium, Iniesta said that he had his account restored but without any explanation from Instagram for the mix-up and snapping up of his handle.

The player’s agent denied any involvement in the social media saga, but finally Instagram did come out with a brief statement to Gizmodo, saying: “We made a mistake here and restored the account as soon as we learned about it. Our apologies go out to Mr Iniesta for the trouble we caused him.”

Andrés Iniesta image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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