It certainly has been an interesting week for followers of Sports Social Media, as Premier League midfielder Joey Barton was released from his club (Newcastle United) after having a very public bust-up with the club via Twitter. As a consequence, every media outlet and journalist has been talking about the ever-growing popularity of social media amongst professional footballers. On one hand, this has been excellent for us that have long been trying to promote the profile of social media within the game. However, on the other hand, it’s a shame to see that yet again the press has instead focused on highlighting negative stories rather than the good (Which admittedly are still too few and infrequent in the UK).
One positive element to take out of the whole Joey Barton debacle was a comment from David Sheepshanks, former Football Association board member and current head of the National Football Centre . Sheepshanks said in a Daily Mirror article,
“My view is football has got to adjust to social media and not just here at St. George’s Park [Where the National Football Centre is based], which is all about learning, but also at club level.”
“I hope the programmes will be instituted at club level which will better equip young players to deal with the sort of things that happen.”
Bravo Mr. Sheepshanks.
Far too many seem intent on pointing the blame just at the players. In my opinion, the clubs share an equal responsibility for what their players tweet. The sooner clubs realise that a Tweet is just as influential (and potentially damaging) as a quote to a journalist, the sooner they can start trying to figure out how to educate their players and help them understand, and be careful, on social channels.
Banning social media amongst players, as a few clubs have done so already, is a short term quick fix that will most definitely never stick. The ever-changing nature of the game means that players constantly transfer between clubs whether on permanent deals or loans. How can clubs expect players to immediately disconnect with their faithful fans all of a sudden? As long as clubs continue to ban, players will never understand what they are doing wrong, nor will they see the potential value that good social media offers.
Clubs must take responsibility for their players by setting aside time to bring in some experts (Wolves recently brought in a media law firm) and educate the players. Inform them of the value of social media, how to use it, how to talk to their fans, what is best practice and what is not. Use existing case studies to demonstrate what isn’t acceptable. Offer players a social media advisor, so they can ask questions or check whether the tweet they want to send out is ok. Provide them, please dear god, with a social media policy – so at the very least they have something on paper at hand (as well as acting as legal document that the player has agreed to adhere to the clubs internal policy). Even give the manager some training and guidance!
These are not difficult initiatives, nor are they expensive. It is unbelievable how most clubs haven’t even got the basics yet. Clubs need to adjust to social media and they need to get on board now, otherwise players will continue to act up.
What did we do before Twitter!
Social media helped spread the riots around the country.
We are always going to get the village idiots regardless of any technical advances in life.
These are grown up and mature people that use social media, in most cases, so we should all set our own standards.
Freedom of speak should never be taken away, but also should never be taken for granted.
Like most things in life if you break the rules or codes of ethics, be prepared to take the consequences, too many people seem to think that they can do as they like, without consequences.
Perhaps if people took up education to improve themselves, we would not have some many juvenile delinquent in society.
Thanks for the comments folks.
Excellent point re. Barton. He potentially could've moved for a couple million quid if it was done in the correct manner and they had the right training and social media policies in place. Instead, they ignored it and now he will go on a free. Its all very well the managers saying they should ban it, but do they realise how they are cutting off an important relationship with their fans?
Clubs must get involved and start treating social media with the respect it deserves. Every other business in the world is sorting their social media out – getting employees to sign off social policies and give them training. Why aren't football clubs?!
Great post. All the top movie celebs have a team of PR spin-doctors managing (or trying to manage) their clients content and images through the media. With the plethora of new media platforms and the ease and accessibility for players to engage with anyone, 'media training' is as vital now as is fitness training.
Joey Barton was rumoured to be attracting interest from a range of top clubs and yet Newcastle have literally fired him at the risk of losing a substantial amount of £'s because of something they deem to be offensive in the media space.
Great opportunity for former players with a bit of media savvy to be consulting to the current crop of superstars!
Thanks for posting this Dan, very interesting article.
I'm very much in agreement with you. Currently, it seems that most clubs view the emergence of twitter as a threat – and obviously, used incorrectly as we've seen from the Joey Barton debacle, it can potentially be damaging to the club's brand and reputation.
However, surely club's should be seeing twitter as a massive opportunity to strengthen the bond between club and fans.
Whilst all of the money that has flooded into the English game has undeniably improved the quality of the football (especially the PL) it has slowly, over the past 15-20 years, created a chasm between player and fan.
Players are now rich beyond their wildest dreams (19 year olds already comfortable millionaires), Club's take care of every part of their life and generally protect them from 'the real world' – it's no surprise that players can no longer relate with the 'man on the street' and visa versa. The relationship between the two is now very distant.
As you quite rightly point out in your article, players are media trained these days so any interview with a player usually results in the usual safe , standard set of cliched answers – offering no real insight or personality.
The net result of all of this is there are very few characters left in the game and there is a 'them and us' divide between fans and players.
Therefore, how wonderful twitter is – or certainly could be. How refreshing it is to hear views, thoughts, p.o.v's straight from the player – direct to the fans, unadulterated by a journalist's angle or the pressure a TV camera. How brilliant the that twitter can facilitate a direct conversation between fan and player. It really knocks down the walls.
A savvy club will see that there are two sides to twitter – absolutely, players should be educated that it isn't the place to air their dirty laundry. However, as i said above, there is a massive opportunity to use twitter to open up the conversation with the fan – to build bridges and strengthen the bond between club and fan.
As a foot note, i'm surprised more chairmen haven't seen the opportunity here. The running of a club is often the one area that fans are kept in the dark about most. Often this results in suspicion and when things aren't going so well – the board can, often unfairly, get the backlash. What a great opportunity twitter could be to knock down these walls and create a transparent relationship.
I'm at a loss how football clubs can fail to see the commercial value of Twitter. They have huge already built communities- passionate and often cash rich – just waiting to do anything to support their team.
Football clubs, specifically, their marketing departments, simply do not get it. They could make huge increases in merchandise sales, see increases in ticket sales, build a stronger brand, have better PR, have more fan engagement. All by investing a small amount of cash into community management and social.
Their loss.