At approximately 2pm on a Sunday afternoon, Spanish goalkeeper legend Iker Casillas posted the following message on Twitter:

“Please respect me: I am gay. #happy sunday

The former Spain national team goalkeeper has nearly ten million followers on Twitter, and the message received great attention and spread during the hour and a half it came out on Sunday.

The goalkeeper legend is one of the greatest players in the history of Spanish football, and won the European Championship twice and the World Cup with the Spanish national team.

– The most absurd thing I’ve ever seen

Newspaper AS believe Casillas may have written a Twitter message in response to rumors that he had been dating several women recently.

The newspaper pointed out that Casillas had been linked with star singer Shakira and several other women in the Spanish color press.

About an hour and a half later, Casillas apologized and claimed he had been hacked.

“Hacked account. Fortunately, everything was fine. Sorry to all my followers. And of course more apologies to the LGBT community,” he wrote.

Some also reacted to the fact that his former national teammate and Barcelona legend, Carles Puyol, responded to the Twitter message that Casillas allegedly hacked as follows:

– It’s time for us to tell our story, Iker, wrote Puyol.

He also came on Sunday evening with an apology:

– I’ve made a mistake. Sorry for the clunky rant with no ill intent. That’s really out of place. I understand that it may have hurt people. All my respect and support for the LGTBIQA community, he explained.

The messages have set Twitter on fire. Several international media quoted Casillas’ message, including that of Puyol. Here at home, NRK wrote about a Twitter message that Casillas should have come across as gay, before they deleted the case moments later.