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Footballers And Twitter

All professional football players should be banned from Twitter, or any other professional athlete that is employed as a representative of a club or association – plain and simple. Football players, in particular though, sign huge contracts and expect hundreds of thousands of pounds in wages, and in return the clubs that offer these terms, to an extent, own that player’s life for the duration of that agreement. I know for a fact that players are contractually restricted from engaging in any kind of activity outside of the club environment where injury is possible. This includes sports like skiing. The obvious reason being that if a player was to go off on a skiing holiday at the end of the season, fall and break a leg or damage his knee, then the club would not be able to use that player for the duration of his injury, but would still have to pay him. So a player is banned from skiing as the outcome of this activity might be counter-productive to the club he is paid to represent. The same is true for Twitter and other social media platforms.

 

Joey Barton’s outburst on Monday evening was a perfect example of negative effect of social media when combined with professional football players. I had a lot of respect for the way in Barton conducted his self on the pitch last season as he continued his rehabilitation as a football player and a human being. There were more than a number of times that watching the verbal and physical abuse he received week-in, week-out by opposing players and fans looked like a recovering alcoholic being given a line of shots. But every time he got knocked down, he picked himself back up, dusted himself off and got on with his game (much to everyone’s surprise). And I completely disagree with the manner in which the Newcastle United board have handled both his and others at the club’s contract situation in the past couple of months. But upon learning that Newcastle would not be offering him an extension; Barton appeared to accept the decision and reaffirm his commitment to the club until he reluctantly left next summer. Now obviously something has changed in either the mind of Barton, or the minds of those advising him and he has very cleverly used the medium available to him to force the club to kick him out. After the things he said, I don’t think the club had any other choice but to wash their hands of him. Now Newcastle will miss out on a year of service from an influential player and any kind of transfer fee a potential buying club would offer for him if he were to leave before that point.

 

But I’m not sure which manager or more importantly chairman in their right mind would want Joey Barton at their club now. It looks like he had us all fooled that he’d changed his ways…

 

Read the full story at skysports.com.