Niall McNamee is the latest victim of GAA Twitter fraud

Offaly footballer Niall McNamee has denied any association with a Twitter account that had been posting potentially-damaging tweets in his name.

McNamee only became aware of the ‘Niallers15’ account last week after being informed by friends that there had been tweets posted about speculation that he might leave Offaly and hook up with the Kildare footballers next season.

The account is active since August of this year and whoever was behind it must have done a pretty good job as McNamee’s alias because the account has attracted 348 followers, including inter-county footballers and Twitter enthusiasts Conor Mortimer, MJ Tierney, Jamie Clarke and Ben Brosnan.

It attracted fair degree of attention recently when a post appeared on the page which read: “all the speculations about me joining Kildare next year are COMPLETELY false #ridiculous.”

It was then that McNamee was made aware of the fact that there was an impostor and he has since moved to distance himself from any association with the social networking behemoth, saying: "I didn't know anything about it until last Thursday when one of the lads sent me a text to say that he had heard that I was talking about the Kildare thing on Twitter.

"It was the first I heard about it, I was never on Twitter in my life, so I couldn't believe it.

"There's been over 100 messages posted on it which have absolutely no relevance to me and I didn't know anything about them. It's a bit uncomfortable to be honest, that someone can do something like that."

Dublin footballer Rory O'Carroll and the gruff but ever entertaining former Mayo footballer David Brady have also been the victim of Twitter fraud in the past, but worryingly for McNamee, he believes that the account was invented by someone he knows well, judging by the photos on the account and by the accuracy with which he has captured the mannerisms of the Rhode native.

"Having looked at the postings, it's someone who knows who I am," he added.

"The way some of the stuff is phrased it is put in a way that I would say it. It is just very uncomfortable, but it would be someone who is close to me or knows me fairly well and would know some of my friends as well.

"I have sent an email to the Twitter office and I'm not sure what the process is but I obviously want to get it stopped.

"It was only the other day when I realised what was happening that I tried to get the page taken away. I am still waiting to hear back on it, but I don't see how someone can set up in a different person's name.

"The way it was done and everything. There are photos that are on it that I could have taken myself. The person who did it would have access to me and that is the most worrying thing about it.

"It's not a nice situation to be in to be honest. The first I heard of it was last week and I kind of brushed it off. It was only when I saw the page myself that it wasn't a nice experience.

"I have had no part to play in this. When someone invades your privacy like that pretending to be you it's very frustrating."

To be fair, we thought it was all a con job from the start. Sure, Twitter hasn’t even reached Offaly yet, has it?