Players from at least seven countries participating in the FIFA World Cup have been banned from social media interaction, including tweeting. Teams from England, Spain, Holland, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico are prohibited from using social networking sites during the competition.
The ban comes alongside the usual abstinence from sex, alcohol and chatting to press, but is a fairly new development in sporting privacy. There was controversy in Holland after Netherlands winger, Eljero Elia, made ‘misconstrued’ comments regarding a “cancerous Morrocan”. He later apologised and explained the insult was used as slang and wasn’t meant to offend, but manager Van Marwijk soon after made Twitter use forbidden for the entire team.
Facebook is also off limits for the England team, for similar reasons. With such a passionate-fuelled and fierce competition ahead, opinions are likely to become less than jovial, and no player, team or manager wants negative press to surround them.
It’s strange to think that Twitter was not at all a popular or well known platform for discussion (or insult) during the last World Cup in 2006, though Nike set up the football oriented social network Joga.com for fans to connect with each other. Since then, the rise of social media means that keeping tabs on kick-by-kick progress of the tournament is possible around the clock, wherever you are.
From live streaming to Twitter, from Facebook to iPhone apps, from YouTube to plugging yourself directly into electrical sockets at the Johannesburg stadium (um, we don’t recommend this last one, but hey, knock yourself out if you’re that committed), it’s going to be pretty hard to avoid the subject of football over the next month, even without the players’ own public opinions.
I suppose we’ll have to wait until afterwards before we find out what they REALLY think of each other…
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[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]
[...] noticed, and hopefully linked to. Right now, you’re probably going to want to incorporate the World Cup into your news, or the BP oil spill, a few months ago the election would have been worth talking [...]