Dulux’s Twitter trolling of Tottenham takes gloss off new sponsorship of club

Tottenham’s new commercial partnership with Dulux got off to a rocky start on Thursday after the paint suppliers mocked the club on Twitter.

Spurs announced that Dulux had become the club’s official paint supplier, with the company’s famous shaggy dog getting a tour of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Hotspur Way training ground. But they were soon mocked by their new partner in hastily-deleted tweets, with the social media team hitting the wrong tone.

Responding to other users’ tweets, they made fun of the club’s lack of recent silverware, posting a picture of an empty trophy cabinet being for sale and then made a barb about the club’s defenders.

One of the tweets from the official Dulux UK account that mocked the abilities of Tottenham’s central defenders. Photograph: Twitter

In a reply to a tweet asking whether the Dulux dog can play centre-back, they tweeted: “He might do a better job”. The tweets certainly made a splash as Dulux was the second-top trend on Twitter in the UK.

Spurs said the partnership will see the club “benefit from the unrivalled expertise in paint and colour” of the country’s leading paint supplier, with all club buildings getting a facelift using specific paint colour matches.

While Tottenham will no doubt fail to see the funny side, fans of other clubs seemed to enjoy the intervention by Dulux’s social media team. “The Dulux admin who ripped the piss out of Spurs minutes after announcing the sponsorship deal is a national hero,” wrote Roman Wegotziyech. “Nothing but Dulux for me from now on.”

Dulux’s media representatives told the Guardian they are currently preparing a statement, which will be released shortly.