da wazamba： After a weekend of thrilling Premier League football action there is another story about controversial ‘Tweets’ by a professional player; it’s starting to become a bit of a trend. There’s been Darren Bent’s rant to Daniel Levy in 2009 and Ryan Babel’s infamous FA charge at the start of the year, whilst a number of QPR players tweeted their feelings on El Hadji Diouf which caused accounts to be suspended. This weekend however, it was the Tweet of Arsenal midfielder, Jack Wilshere.
da bet7： The Gunners youngster posted a comment about ‘inconsistent refereeing’ in regards to Abou Diaby’s sending off at Newcastle on Saturday. Wilshere felt that Newcastle’s Kevin Nolan should’ve been sent off for raising his hands to the Arsenal ‘keeper in the same game. It’s been labelled as an attack on the referee for that game, Phil Dowd, but the Twitter post has since been removed and it is unlikely Wilshere will face any FA punishment. Is it a case of double standards?
Just look at the punishment Liverpool’s Ryan Babel received when he made a Twitter post about referee Howard Webb. Babel had posted a mocked up picture of Webb in a Manchester United shirt after Liverpool’s FA Cup defeat at Old Trafford. Despite his apology for questioning Webb’s integrity, the FA charged Babel with improper conduct.
Although Wilshere did not post any mocked up pictures of Phil Dowd in his Tweet, he still gave a public opinion that referees are inconsistent. So what is freedom of speech for footballers? And what do the FA classify as improper conduct?
These are important questions with the growth of social networking sites like Twitter, which are able to bring the professional players that bit closer to the fans. If these stories continue for the rest of the season then we could see an FA ban on professional players using the social networking site, or at least using it as their own verified selves. Instead, Twitter could be full of pseudonym footballers who tweet in Morse code.
Ryan Babel will be asking questions to the Football Association after Wilshere escaped punishment for a pretty similar incident. Even though Wilshere wasn’t charged, I wonder where it leaves pro footballers and their social networking days. As if these stories keep occuring and the FA keeps reprimanding players, footballers will have no voice and become more distant from the fans who play a huge part in who they are.
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