Before the advent of social media, any controversies around the “beautiful” game were confined to the pitch and to a large extent the TV. Footballers, particularly in the UK are perceived as celebrities and therefore their every move is heavily scrutinised. This close inspection has been made even easier by Twitter and somewhat Facebook.

Twitter has for better or worse, taken the English premier league by storm. Leading players such as Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand, Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie, and former Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton have created a second home on Twitter. This is good for the fans as Twitter is one of the few links that fans have with the players. Ferdinand is by far the most active footballer on Twitter, posting numerous tweets on any given day. Barton on the other hand, who recently joined Queens Park Rangers, is perhaps the most controversial footballer on Twitter. His tweets can be easily taken to be offensive and “wide off the mark”. Part of the reason why Newcastle let him go was because of some of his controversial tweets.

Although there is nothing wrong with footballers posting comments on Twitter per se, there is however a problem when those particular comments are by extension linked to the football club that the player represents. Very often you find that when you read a news story on any football website, a player’s comment on Twitter on any particular incident is quoted. Thus the challenge that Premier League teams face is how to regulate their players on Twitter. Premier League managers are certainly worried about how their clubs are perceived by the world and hence they would want to control their players’ behaviour off the pitch but Twitter has made this difficult. So, what do they do?

The first the thing is that they should take Twitter more seriously and treat it as a member of the media. The other obvious and simple route is to set club rules and principles on the usage of Twitter. I think the problem is that footballers such as Barton often forget that they have an image to uphold. They forget that they can’t just post “rubbish” and easily get away with it. Earlier this year Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson suggested he could ban his players from using Twitter after Wayne Rooney offered to ‘fight a fan’ online. We all know that Sir Alex is ruthless and I would not be surprised if the ban happened.

I think the other important thing is for players to simply think before they post.

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