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The BBC has apologised to Sir Doug Ellis for an unfortunate subtitle mistakingly linking him with a radical political group.

A mix-up occurred when a commentator on the flagship Match of the Day programme said: 'Great to see Doug Ellis here in his Villa scarf' during highlights of last month's defeat at Everton.

Unfortunately, the subtitles that appeared on screen had a rather different meaning: 'Great to see Doug Ellis here with Hezbollah'.

The regrettable mistake was flagged up in a letter to the Radio Times.

The writer Gary Stark, of Kettering, in Northamptonshire, wrote: "I hope he doesn't sue!"

A spokesperson for the BBC responded by apologising to Aston Villa's President Emiritus.

"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. "

Hezbollah is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon.