New England midfielder Declan Rice has apologised for old social media posts he made as a teenager which appear to support the IRA.
The 20-year-old is set to feature in his first matchday squad for Gareth Southgate having had his switch of allegiance from the Republic of Ireland confirmed earlier this month.
A comment he made on Instagram in 2015 saying 'My brudda. UP THE RA. Wait till we draw England', and another post with the hashtag 'UPTHERA', have resurfaced and Rice has quickly apologised for them.
READ MORE: Kazakhstan 3 Scotland 0: Alex McLeish's men crash to humiliating defeat in Euro 2020 opener
"I am aware that a poorly-expressed comment I made when I was a junior player has been been circulated on social media," the West Ham man - who played for the Republic's youth teams from under-16 to under-21 and the senior side three times - said in an Instagram story post.
"I recognise now that my attempt to show support for my team-mates at the time could be negatively interpreted.
"While my naive words were not meant to be a political opinion and do not represent who I am, I sincerely apologise for any offence caused."
The Football Association is aware of the historic posts.
READ MORE: Kazakhstan 3 Scotland 0: How sorry Scots rated
"We are aware of the matter and will be writing to him to remind him of his responsibilities," said an official.
England face the Czech Republic on Friday in Euro 2020 qualifying.
Asked about England supporters chanting 'No surrender to the IRA' in response to Rice's tweets, manager Southgate said: "We would be against any of our supporters taking up that sort of stance."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here