The Daily Express has apologised after it published an “ill-informed and wrong” article suggesting Liverpool fans shared responsibility for violence before a Champions League semi-final match.

The article, which was described as “an appalling slur” by the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, was published on the paper’s website after Sean Cox, 53, a Liverpool supporter, was left seriously injured after an alleged attack by Roma fans before the game at Anfield on Tuesday evening. He is in an induced coma in hospital.

Filippo Lombardi, 20, has been charged with violent disorder and causing grievous bodily harm, and Daniele Sciusco, 29, was charged with violent disorder. Both men are from Rome.

In the article, which has since been deleted, the journalist Colin Mafham wrote that trouble seemed to follow Liverpool fans like “bees round a honey pot”. He said he feared that after the stadium disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, the latest generation of the club’s supporters “could well add another chapter to England’s footballing book of condolences”.

A statement on the Express website said: “This article was ill-informed and wrong. It did not, in any way, reflect the views of the Express. It should never have been written and was very quickly removed. We unconditionally apologise, both for the article itself and any offence, understandably, caused.

“The journalist who wrote the piece was immediately suspended. Express.co.uk is conducting an inquiry into how the article came to be published on our website.”

Daily Express (@Daily_Express) Liverpool fans and Football Club: Our apology @LFC @mayor_anderson https://t.co/9SBh8K3nh9 pic.twitter.com/i8pWDHsXLG

In the comment piece with the headline “Liverpool must take serious action after Roma violence or risk further trouble”, Mafham wrote: “You would have thought the deaths of 39 Italians at the European Cup final Liverpool lost to Juventus in 1985, plus the five-year ban on English clubs that consequently came after that, would have had a sobering effect.

“You would have thought the horrors at Hillsborough and 96 more deaths that followed only four years later would have made everyone more aware of their responsibilities to each other.

“Those two tragedies, in which the central figures were sadly mostly from Liverpool, are arguably football’s most painful Achilles and hopefully will never happen again.

“So why do I fear that the latest generation of that club’s supporters could well add another chapter to England’s footballing book of condolences?”

He added: “When you have a team capable of playing the joyous football Liverpool have for most of this season, how on earth are their fans always seemingly involved in such horrific altercations on big European nights. Why does trouble seem to follow them like bees round a honey pot?”

Joe Anderson (@mayor_anderson) Really passionate,sincere heartfelt apology just been made to me by the Editor @Daily_Express Gary Jones over the appalling slur on LFC fans and our City. The Journalist concerned has rightly been suspended and an investigation is being held.

Writing on Twitter on Thursday night, Anderson asked why the paper thought it acceptable to publish the article, two years to the day of the Hillsborough verdict. He called on the Daily Express editor, Gary Jones, to “face the city and apologise”.

Anderson later tweeted that he had received a “really passionate, sincere [and] heartfelt apology” from Jones and “the journalist concerned has rightly been suspended and an investigation is being held”.

Margaret Aspinall, a leading Hillsborough campaigner, said in a letter to the editor of the Express: “Yet again ill-informed journalists feel the need to spew out stories that breed contempt and bad feeling.

“There still seems to be an awful lot of misunderstanding about what happened on that terrible, terrible day [of the Hillsborough disaster] and I feel as if certain members of the media are continuing to play a role of tarnishing our fans and survivors at this crucial time when our families still have so far to go to get accountability.”



She concluded: “I would like to end this letter by saying to you that I am not a whinging Scouser. I’m a mother who lost her beautiful son James when he went to his first away game and never returned home. I am a Scouser who is proud of my city, its people, its club and most importantly its fans, especially the survivors of that terrible day.”