NEWCASTLE UNITED MIDFIELDER Alan Smith has distanced himself from what was believed to be his official Twitter account, @alansmithy17, after a stream of unusual messages began to appear in its timeline.

Earlier this afternoon, there was widespread speculation that the account had been hacked by one of Smith’s former love interests who began to post a series of messages designed to damage the former Leeds and Manchester United player’s reputation.

One of tweets  stated “he doesn’t care about football, he doesn’t care about anything apart from his ££,” while another attempted to get the hashtag #AlanSmithToRetire trending.

However, Sport First, the Birmingham-based agency which represents Smith as well as a number of professional footballers quickly issued a denial on the player’s behalf, tweeting that “@alansmithy17 is not and has never been the Twitter account of footballer Alan Smith”.

The agency has issued a number of similar statements through Twitter over the past few weeks, well in advance of any unusual activity occurring on the account.

The account in question has been in operation since March 31 and has over 1800 followers. Over the past five weeks, over 280 tweets have been sent out, the majority of which gave no indication that the account may have been fraudulent.

Although the attached biography describes the page as “the official Alan Smith Twitter account,” it has never been independently verified by Twitter as is the case with a majority of “celebrity” accounts.

While it now appears unlikely that the footballer ever had any connection to the account in question, the identity and motive of the individual behind the drawn-out impersonation remains unknown.