da bet nacional： Twitter and football were in the news again this week, with the non-story in the Telegraph of certain City players getting annoyed at the tweets of certain United players, as more and more footballers join the twitter revolution. Tedious stuff, but it shows that footballers need guidance when communicating with the real world. The other week, Wojciech Szczesny became the latest footballer to get himself into Twitter hot water. Szczesny’s joke that his team-mate’s leisure attire made him “look like a rapist” was ill-advised to say the least.
da cassino online： For fans there is little to gain from these accounts – some generic tweets speaking of joy at a victory or disappointment at a defeat hardly make for exhilarating viewing, as most footballers know they can’t say anything too controversial or risk losing two weeks’ wages. Joey Barton is the exception of course, but managers seemed to have given up on trying to control him, and if he wasn’t in the public eye then no one could give a damn about what he says. Occasionally a footballer will let the mask slip, leading to twitter meltdown, and trouble for such players as Luis Enrique, Ryan Babel or Nathan Eccleston.
I follow at least five Manchester City players, but I’ve no idea why. I follow Michael Owen to make my life seem more interesting, and TSF (the secret footballer) because he has more to say of interest under the cloak of anonymity.
Whilst Manchester United have a relaxed attitude to squad players on Twitter, accepting as an inevitable price of progress, Alex Ferguson is dead against it, not surprisingly. Most managers would probably prefer their squad to remain out the public eye wherever possible. In an era when a story and a scandal can be created out of pretty much anything, managers don’t need the hassle of players interacting with fans this way, because a significant section of those fans will not want to do anything more than goad or wind up the footballers. And that’s the problem – we have for decades bemoaned how detached from normality footballers have become, how far-removed they are from the “common man” – but when technology comes along to at least partly redress the balance, the system is abused. Players receive media training, but I doubt it includes social network sites. The NFL on the other hand has a social media policy that all players must adhere to.
But whilst reading Joey Barton’s daily hypocrisy or his quotes of Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, or Michael Owen’s stunning expose of his love of cooked chickens; the last few months have revealed a darker side to the networking site.
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Footballers are discovering that putting yourself in the public eye leaves you open to abuse of all kinds. Calling someone rubbish is one thing, Piers Morgan taunting Rio Ferdinand another, but the recent spate of racial abuse of footballers is on another level altogether. Last week an Arsenal supporter was threatening death for Aaron Ramsey for a perceived bad performance at Swansea, adding that he knew where he lived. Nice.
Football already makes us fans ridiculously angry at times, and twitter can be used to condense that anger and bring out the worst side of some people, and the in-built prejudices and bigotry they harbour.
Stan Collymore was one of the high profile targets of racial abuse on Twitter recently, but there have been plenty more, no doubt not just against footballers of course (Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati left Twitter in June after being bombarded with racist messages). The problem is that behind a keyboard, these internet warriors thought that they co do anything and get away with it – thankfully Collymore and others thought differently, and arrests have been made.
The race rows involving high-profile footballers hasn’t helped Twitter’s image. The predictable drawing up of viewpoints along club-lines has led ironically to fans displaying candid racist thoughts whilst arguing their side.Collymore “favourited” many offensive tweets to expose the abuse to users of the social networking site. He also said: “Have a look at my favourites. Tell me Twitter shouldn’t do something”. And he’s right – surely there has to be a check on such views. Twitter commented on the ongoing Stan Collymore racism storm, saying that tweeting racist abuse will always be taken extremely seriously. Only time will tell.
Thankfully the police are taking comments seriously, and deleting the account does not give the abuser an escape route. But the abuse continues. In the first ban of its kind, football fan Luke O’Donoughoe, 22 was was banned from Norwich City matches for life, and was investigated by police after allegedly posting racist comments on Twitter. In November 2011, two teenagers were arrested after racist abuse on twitter towards Newcastle’s Sammy Ameobi. Manchester City footballer Micah Richards also suffered racist slurs over the net. Premiership footballer Louis Saha was subjected to foul-mouthed racial abuse, and a Scottish premier league footballer has suffered similarly.
Gradually, it must be hoped that the users of twitter who think they hide behind anonymity will come to realise that they are responsible for their actions. Racist abuse is not a surprise – there are endless racists out there, and there always will be. But regarding social networking and the bond between players and fans, it must be hoped that Twitter becomes a more inviting place for footballers to visit, or we may soon see the trend of footballers joining Twitter being quickly reversed.
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