Premier League footballers are employing legal firms to wipe their old social media posts.

West Ham midfielder Declan Rice recently made headlines after pro-IRA tweets from 2015 as he prepared to make his England debut.

He is not the first player to fall foul of old comments being dug up.

Watford striker Andre Gray was forced to apologise for four year-old homophobic tweets posted during his time with non-league Hinckley United in 2012 after he hit a rich vein of Premier League form with Burnley in 2016.

Matt Himsworth, founder and director of law firm Himsworth Scott, told iNews: “For every Declan Rice there are probably 10 other players who have worked with agents or clubs to delete or do a 'tidy up', as we call it.

“The younger generations aren't really using Facebook , so they tend to gravitate towards Twitter or more likely Instagram now."

According to Himsworth, he was approached by a Premier League player after a January move and opted to bulk delete all tweets from the 9,000 tweet account not posted in the last year as they dated back to his teenage days and did not want to take any risks.

A young player who made his Premier League debut this season also had potentially embarrassing old tweets discovered and erased.