A SECURITY flaw is being blamed for the Football Association of Wales’ handling of the announcement regarding the curtailment of the domestic season.

The governing body were left red-faced when BBC Sport Wales broke the news on their website before the FAW had even informed clubs of their decision.

In a letter obtained by Dai Sport, FAW chief executive Jonathan Ford accused the BBC of accessing an “unpublished page and not available to the public” on their website to secure the information.

This has been denied by the BBC, who claim not to have accessed web pages that were not easily accessible to everyone.

The letter, read: “As you will know, the announcement appeared on a media outlet prior to you receiving official communication from the FAW.

“I would like to assure you that it was never the FAW’s intention for a media outlet to receive the information detailing the curtailment of the league prior to shareholders, clubs, leagues and areas receiving the details first.

“Prior to the confirmation of the FAW Board’s decision, a communication timeline had been constructed with the intention to ensure that you, our key stakeholder, were informed of the decision first.

“Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that whilst the web page was being built and edited in preparation for publication of the announcement, our investigation has confirmed that a security flaw allowed access to the unpublished page.

“A media outlet accessed this part of the site, not available to the public, and reported on the content of this unpublished and unfinished article. The security flaw has been corrected and additional levels of security added to prevent this from happening again with sensitive announcements.

“On behalf of the FAW, I would like to reiterate our apologies and disappointment in the manner in which the news of this announcement was communicated.”

The BBC are reported to claim that the page available was published by the FAW, but deleted once they saw their error.