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Liverpool PR chief Jen Chang has gone to ground amid the fall-out of the 'Duncan Jenkins' Twitter fiasco.
Chang withdrew his place at the Press Association's table at Sunday's Northern Managers Awards Dinner in Manchester after the club launched a probe into allegations of serious harassment by the club's director of communications.
Caught on CCTV: Liverpool director of communications Jen Chang is pictured meeting 'Duncan Jenkins' - fan Sean Cummins - at Manchester restaurant Evuna in August
JUST WHO IS DUNCAN JENKINS?
@DuncanJenkinsFC is an amusing fake Twitter account of a wannabe football journalist.
It is the work of Sean Cummins, a 35-year-old who lives in Manchester. The Duncan Jenkins character originally started on Facebook - someone who was inept and delusional in equal measure, as well as being obsessed with The Bill.
Just under a year ago, he relaunched on Twitter as a 'perspiring journalist'. Dotted with misspellings and dodgy cliches, it also oddly predicted the correct Liverpool team well before anyone else ahead of each game.
Cummins later admitted he just pinched it off a fans' forum and published it instantly, as he had done with transfer gossip.
Liverpool have refused to comment on the affair, which revolves around a blogger, Sean Cummins, describing himself as a 'perspiring football journo', and it pretended to have inside knowledge about transfers at Anfield under the parody moniker Duncan Jenkins.
But managing director Ian Ayre met Cummins on Monday. Liverpool's head of human resources also attended the 85 minute meeting at the club's Chapel Street offices, reports the Independent.
Afterwards Cummins said he felt he was given a fair hearing as he outlined the chain of events.
Ayre decided to speak to Cummins as well as Chang and others involved in an unseemly episode which began when Jenkins started publicising information Chang believed must have come from inside Anfield.
Chang describes Jenkins's allegations about threats made at a genuine meeting in Manchester as 'fictitious nonsense' but his position looks vulnerable if Ayre decides otherwise.
Cummins published his version of his communication and meeting with Chang in an explosive blog post on Friday.
In it, he claims that Chang demanded to know who his alleged mole inside Anfield is. Cummins has denied that he has an insider at the club leaking information - instead pointing out that all his information was lifted from fans' forums.
Chang set up a meeting with Cummins at the Evuna restaurant in Manchester in August - but Cummins alleges this was the start of the meltdown in the relations between the pair.
After accusing Cummins of costing the club 300,000 extra in the Fabio Borini transfer from Roma this summer because of 'information' posted on the Jenkins Twitter feed, it is then alleged that Chang demanded he tweet under the fake account to 'confess' there was no mole and the whole account was made up.
Bully claims: Chang, who joined Liverpool in the summer, denies allegations made by 'Jenkins'
Headlines: Duncan Jenkins (L), followed by thousands on social networking site Twitter, posted about Liverpool
At this point, Cummins asked Change what would happen if he didn't agree to the deal.
According to the blog post, Chang claimed he would be banned from Anfield along with the other man he shares a season-ticket with.
Chang, it is claimed, also threatened to hand over his dossier on Cummins to journalist who could 'run smear stories on me in the tabloid press'.
Internal investigation: Liverpool's managing director Ian Ayre will now probe the claims
And, perhaps most shockingly, Chang is also alleged to have told Cummins: 'You know how crazy football fans are. You'll have dog shit coming through your letterbox, you'll have to take your Facebook page down, you might even have to move house.'
Chang, who has confirmed that he did meet the self-styled Slam Dunc in Manchester, has already denied the claims.
He said: 'I will not be responding to total nonsense. The contents of my tweets that are included in the blog bear no relation whatsoever to the false accusations made by a fictional character. There was never any investigation by Liverpool over the tweets.'
However, that has not stopped Liverpool launching an investigation into their own PR chief.
Chang was brought in to Liverpool this summer to boost their PR drive after last season's troubles with the Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra race row. He replaced long-serving Ian Cotton, who was forced out after 16 years at the club.
At the hight of Liverpool's glory days the club was run by gentlemen. Now it is run by a bunch of clueless and unsavoury characters. I dont know who interviews these people for the jobs they are in but that person needs to be replaced, FSG have shown at every turn that they are apt at making mistakes , transfers , apointing managers and so on. This sordid little event is again dragging the club's name through the mud,its embarrassing and upsetting. I long for the days when this once great club was run by gentlemen , not conn men.
- youdontknowme , belfast, 23/10/2012 14:42
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