World Cup fans riled by England's 'sexist' tweet

England's Football Association deleted a Twitter post Monday morning that described thewomen's team members as "mothers, partners and daughters" and which was immediately criticized as sexist and patronizing.

The tweet linked to a blog post on the FA's website that hailed the Lionesses,third-place finishers at the FIFA Women's World Cup, as heroes, but started with:"England Women went back to being mothers, partners, sisters and daughters on Monday morning."

As some soccer fans on Twitter pointed out, many members of England's women's team are professional football players.

Critics of the FA's tweet said that characterizing the women in terms of their relationship to other people was sexist and patronizing, and that such a thing would never have been written about the men's team.

The tweet and the corresponding sections of the blog post were quietly deleted. An FA spokesman told the BBC that the blog post was about the players reuniting with their families.

"The full story was a wider homecoming feature attempting to reflect the many personal stories within the playing squad as has been told throughout the course of the tournament," the FA spokesman said. "However, we understand that an element of the story appears to have been taken out of context and the opening paragraph was subsequently revised to reflect that fact."