Deadly Doug Ellis is linked to Hezbollah in Beeb howler
The BBC has issued an apology to former Villa chairman Sir Doug Ellis after mistakenly linking him with a radical Islamic political group.
When a commentator on Match of the Day said that it was 'great to see Doug Ellis here in his Villa scarf', the subtitles instead read 'great to see Doug Ellis here with Hezbollah'.
Hezbollah is a Muslim political and militant group based in Lebanon that is considered a terrorist organisation by several countries, including the USA.
The mistake, which happened during Villa's loss at the hands of Everton last month, was flagged up in a reader's letter to the Radio Times.
Gary Stark of Kettering spotted the gaffe and wrote in to the magazine, joking: "Let's hope he doesn't sue!"
The BBC issued an apology for the mistake alongside the letter.
A spokesman said: "Match of the Day is a live programme and to subtitle it we used a method known as 'live respeaking'.
"The voice recognition technology misrecognised the word 'Villa' leading to the error.
"We apologise for any offence caused and are working hard to make subtitles as accurate as they can be."
Now 91 years old, Sir Doug was chairman of Villa for two separate spells.
The first was from 1968-75 and the second was from 1982-2006.
He sold the club to American billionaire Randy Lerner for £63 million in 2006 and stood aside as chairman with the sale completed before becoming a life president of the club.
In 2012, Ellis was knighted for his charity work.
It is not the first time a subtitle error has been spotted on Match of the Day.
In 2014, the technology hilariously struggled to get to grips with the name of Manchester United's midfielder Adnan Januzaj.
Although it correctly spelled out Hernandez, Van Persie, Rooney and Juan Mata, the system was stumped by Januzaj and printed the Belgian's name as 'Janet Jazz Jazz Jam'.
