Instagram apologizes for closing user account and giving username to soccer star

Instagram has admitted it made a mistake when it closed the account of a Spanish father and gave the username to a famous soccer (football) player of the same name.

Andrés Iniesta, who uses the @ainiesta handle on Instagram, shares a name with the F.C. Barcelona midfielder and captain. And over the weekend, Iniesta (not the footballer) wrote a blog post saying that his Instagram account had been deactivated “without previous notice” because he had “infringed the terms of use.”

After he had no luck getting help from Instagram’s support team, Iniesta said, friends who follow him on Instagram reported seeing the famous footballer’s photos posted to their timeline instead. Five hours after posting about his experience, and despite nobody contacting him to explain why it had been taken away from him, his account was restored.

However, in a statement to VentureBeat, Instagram confirmed the incident and issued an apology, 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.

While the soccer star’s verified Instagram profile can now be found at @andresiniesta8, his Spanish name double said he’s still not been told by Instagram what happened or why. And despite its confirmation to VentureBeat, Instagram wouldn’t elaborate on why it occurred either.

Instagram does warn about “inactive usernames,” saying that accounts may be permanently removed due to “prolonged inactivity,” but that doesn’t seem to have been the case here.

Our best guess is that someone — perhaps a P.R. person or social media manager — representing the Barcelona player contacted Instagram about obtaining the handle, and Instagram didn’t check that the owner was a legitimate, active user who just happened to have the same name.