Facebook, Instagram crash may have caused delay in Lampard’s announcement

Chelsea Football Club could have announced the appointment of their legend Frank Lampard as new manager on Wednesday but were forced to delay his announcement due to outages on social media platforms- Facebook and Instagram.

However, the club made the official announcement of Lampard as its manager following the exit of most recent manager Maurizio Sarri, who joined Seria A champions Juventus.

In an unusual manner, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, all owned by Mark Zuckerberg, did not function optimally like its users would have preferred on Wednesday.

Some users of these social media platforms thought there inability to share a document, photograph, videos and audio files were caused by their service providers.

A lot of persons resorted to switching off and turning on their mobile devices for optimal performance be restored on their phones, but it did not. Later, it became evident that it was a general occurrence globally.

In a report by the Mirror stated that “the club have opted to delay the official confirmation – with some reports suggesting it could be because popular social media websites Facebook and Instagram crashed on Wednesday afternoon.”

“However, the club insist that is not the case.”

Sky had reported this week that Chelsea were aiming for an announcement before Thursday prior to outages on the social media platforms.

Currently, Chelsea have 17.4million followers on Instagram and 48million fans on Facebook. The ease of ensuring the news of Lampard’s appointment reaches its fams globally is likely to have caused the announcement Thursday morning when the platforms were fixed.

Lampard signed a three-year deal to return to the Stamford Bridge to succeed Maurizio Sarri, who departed the club after a lone season in charge.

“I am immensely proud to be returning to Chelsea as head coach. Everyone knows my love for this club and the history we have shared, however, my sole focus is on the job in hand and preparing for the season ahead,” he told Chelsea FC.

“I am here to work hard, bring further success to the club and I cannot wait to get started,” he added.

Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia said that it is a “great pleasure” to welcome Lampard back to Chelsea as head coach.

“Frank possesses fantastic knowledge and understanding of the club and last season, he demonstrated he is one of the most talented young coaches in the game,” he said.

Lampard, who is Chelsea’s all-time scorer, spent 13 years as a player in west London, scoring 211 goals in 649 games.

He won three Premier League titles, the Champions League, four FA Cups, two League Cups and the Europa League while also finishing second to Ballon d’Or winner Ronaldinho in 2005.

Lampard will bring staff from Derby with him, with ex-Blues midfielder Jody Morris expected to join as his assistant manager after working with him at the Rams.