Football players fined because of Twitter: total rubbish or rightly deserved?

There’s no doubt that Twitter is THE social media hit at the moment. More and more people are setting up a Twitter-account and more and more football players are enjoying Twitter as well. These players share all kinds of stories and pictures from ‘behind the scenes’ with their followers (mostly fans). I follow players like Robin van Persie (@Persie_Official), Ruud van Nistelrooy (@RvN1776) and Cesc Fabregas (@cesc4official) myself as well and I’ve got to admit that it’s kind of fun to read about the everyday life of these players. I haven’t looked up a lot of other players yet but I think I will in the near future.

issues I want to discuss however are the cases in which a player gets fined because of a tweet. Several players had to cede a part of their salary due to a tweet that wasn’t appreciated by their own club, other clubs or the football association from the specific country involved. Probably the most commonly known Twitter-issue in Holland is the Twitpic fired onto the web by Ryan Babel (@RyanBabel), a Liverpool striker at the time. After losing the match against Manchester United, a game in which referee Howard Webb made some doubtful decisions (‘again!?’ will every Dutch person think after the lost World Cup final). Babel’s reaction after the game was a Tweet containing a picture of Howard Webb in a ManU-shirt accompanied by another Tweet with the words: “And they call him one of the best referees. That’s a joke. SMH” (SMH meaning ‘Shake My Head’). This whole saga ended with a fine (becoming the first player to be punished by the FA for Twitter actions).

I could now discuss lots of other cases in which players Tweet stuff that isn’t appreciated by some people; I think it’s more interesting however to look for reasons why players do this and to discuss where to draw the line on what’s a proper Tweet and what’s not. I mean it can be argued if it’s really offensive to post a picture like the one above. I think it’s more funny than rude and therefore a fine is not in place. However it should be considered that players are an example to a lot of (young) people and therefore should pay attention to what they say, whether it’s in an interview or on social media. I guess the truth lies within both statements, which makes it hard to judge all these cases. The key question on this issue is off course where to draw the line? What do you think?

Thanks for reading, hope u enjoyed it!!

Twillebrities?

Ben Saunders, a tattoo artist and MMA-fighter born in England, living in the Dutch city of Hoorn. A complete stranger to everybody, of whom was assumed that he would be bound to live a normal life like anyone else. This all changed drastically however, after Ben’s participation in the new tv-show ‘The voice of Holland’. After broadcasting the first episode (in which Ben was presented) a YouTube-hit was born. Ben Saunders’ name was settled already…

The voice of Holland was booming in the Netherlands, partly thanks to the amazing first performance of Ben. After reaching the live shows, the madness continued with two number one singles in the single top 100 and eventually by winning the competition. The popularity of The voice of Holland and its contestants created huge business opportunities and Vodafone being the main sponsor started a campaign which stimulated the use of social media. That is one of the reasons that the show became an even bigger success.

Ben Saunders has become a symbol in Holland because of his singing abilities and his extraordinary appearance, but the use of social media in ‘the voice’ made him one of the most popular Dutch twitter users as well. He is the living proof of the fact that Twitter is a medium that should certainly be taken into account. Twitter is a medium that allows celebrities to be in direct contact with their fans, making it more personal than any medium so far. Celebrities become Twillebrities when starting up a Twitter account (Ben Saunders already has almost 130.000 followers for example) and from then on, they should be careful what they tweet about. More about Twitter-problems soon however, this is it for today… Thanks for reading!!