Rice apologizes for old social-media post about IRA

LONDON (AP) — A day before possibly making his England debut, Declan Rice has apologized for an old social-media post in which he appeared to support the IRA.

The West Ham midfielder says in a message on Instagram on Thursday that the comments were “poorly expressed” and “naive,” and “were not meant to be a political opinion and do not represent who I am.”

Rice played for an Irish national youth team at the time of his remarks in 2015. Responding to a teammate, Rice wrote “up the RA” — a term for the IRA.

The English Football Association said it would be writing to Rice “to remind him of his responsibilities.”

Rice recently switched allegiances to England, his country of birth, after playing three friendly games for Ireland.