The editor of the Reading Chronicle is leaving the title after apologising for a front-page article linking the Hillsborough stadium disaster with football hooliganism prompted outrage.
Maurice O'Brien was suspended last week when the paper published a front-page apology for the story, which was headlined "The Other Face of Football".
Berkshire Media Group managing director Keith McIntyre said: "I issued a statement last night to staff letting them know that Maurice has left the company."
The story was illustrated with a mock-up of a Reading FC fan brandishing a weapon.
One paragraph read: "Football hooliganism may be thought of as a relic from a previous age when gangs of denim-clad skinheads held the game to ransom and names like Hillsborough and Heysel were symbols of its ills."
O'Brien was news editor at the Chronicle since 1997 and promoted to editor earlier this year.
He apologised for the piece shortly after it was published, saying: "There was no intention whatsoever to cast any aspersions at all and indeed, on page 5 inside the paper, we talk about sickening Hillsborough slurs which have been shouted at football matches.
"It is simply the fact at that time, when it happened, when you said to people 'football hooligans', people said 'Hillsborough and Heysel'.
"We certainly in no way would wish to link Hillsborough with hooliganism. That certainly wasn't our intention.
"We have no intention of upsetting anybody, particularly the survivors, having appreciated everything they have gone through over a considerable amount of time.
"The intention of doing this story was to try and point out to people that the issues are still going on, the problems of hooliganism."
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