The football season is back under way (hooray! Well, for me anyway). The traditional season opener, the Community Shield, has whetted our appetites, The Guardian have put out their excellent 2011/12 season guide, and it’s nearly time for the Premier League to get into full swing once again. Hopefully the football will make up for a decidedly quiet summer in the transfer market. Indeed, so bereft have the papers been of transfer talk, that Twitter has been dominating the back pages in its stead.
Joey Barton arrives at training
Yep, Joey Barton (@joeyb7arton) enraged his current employers Newcastle United by tweeting his dissatisfaction about the club’s board, also claiming that they were seeding negative, untrue stories about him in the local press. For those of us who follow sports news regularly, it wasn’t a massive surprise – Joey’s updates have been brewing up to this boiling point for a while now. He looks certain to leave (as if he wasn’t going to anyway), but his story has caused plenty of anguish and discussion in the media about footballers using Twitter.
Those of you who read our blog regularly will know that I’ve posted on this before (goalkeepers making a fumble with Twitter). Football clubs need to concentrate on getting the basics right; banning players from using it is not going to work, as it will produce massive opprobrium for the legion of fans already signed up for their heroes tweets. Manchester United has a clear internal policy guideline on what its players can and can’t tweet about, which is a sensible first step. Twitter training would be another obvious suggestion, but I can’t imagine a group of players who earn on average £33,868 a week will really take it that seriously. Besides, training isn’t going to stop someone from posting something that they regard as a ‘joke’ (see: Carlton Cole); it was funny when you told the dressing room, so why wouldn’t your followers get a kick out of it too?
No, I think we’re going to be in for a bit of a rocky ride this season, and a few more fires are going to have to be put out by clubs before players truly realise the impact their 140 characters can have. The wider issues is the fact that for fans (and journalists), access to players is so often merely an afterthought of promotional activity for sponsors. Having someone like Wayne Rooney or Joey Barton tweet so honestly and emotionally gives us a rare glimpse into inner workings of the dressing room. It’s an almost like a snapshot of a different time, when footballers could be found drinking in the pub after training. A reminder that footballers are normal, not untouchable superstars.
August 8th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
What’s truly amazing is that Joey Barton managed to quote Orwell, Charles Darwin and Nietzsche. Who knew? Wow, perhaps he isn’t such an illiterate, brainless thug after all. Or maybe his agent wrote his tweets for him. After all, they get a cut of any transfer fee don’t they?
Players on Twitter reminds me of the old days (cue Hovis music) when you could actually talk to players. The days when footballers used to play for their local club, get the Tube to the ground, and sign autographs after the match. I’ve been on the Tube with Anders Limpar and shared a pint with Liam Brady.
Nowadays they get a police escort to the ground and drive out of the car park as quickly as possible in their blacked out 4x4s, and manage to avoid the fans altogether (unless you’re John Terry in which case you run them over). I really hope clubs aren’t going to get heavy handed and ban players from Twitter. How else will I be able to tell Cesc he can p*** off to Barca and I’ll take him to the airport myself?
August 8th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Good article Mark.
You’re spot on – clubs need to do a lot more than simply banning their players from Twitter. Clubs need to start with the basics, and like any business – that means educating and enforcing social media policies. Don’t simply “Don’t do” but explain the consequences of poorly thought out tweets – there’s plenty of case studies out there.
Secondly, clubs need to do something to enforce this. Ideally clubs would replicate the US sport scene and invest in proper Social Media teams – not just leaving it up to their PR officer. No disrespect to PR officers, but they have enough to get on with and football/social demands someone like a Community Manager to talk to fans, educate players and be the engine room behind all social club activity.
As you rightly state, social has provided us with a fantastic insight into their lives and helps us remember that footballers are normal, and not always the superhero superstars that the media sometimes portrays. I’ve written a bit about the value of this before here, which may be of interest to you (Especially if you enjoy football digital media : http://digital-football.com/2011/07/31/kyle-goons-social-media-does-athletes-no-favors-article-seems-to-miss-the-point/)
Cheers