Remember when Jadon Sancho ended his Manchester United career by lashing out at his manager via a Twitter post?
That’s the power of social media in football.
It’s not all players embarrassing themselves though. Think of how quickly fans are updated with the latest news. How easy it is to follow the action at the weekend. The fan engagement with clubs, players, and each other. You can even get behind the scenes access to club training sessions, interviews with staff and players, and loads more.
Then there are the players themselves who have their own accounts, giving you a window into their lives. We also get a better idea of who they are as people from the things they post. Ben Foster would even set up his camera behind the goal and record the games he was playing in, then share a goal side view on his social media channels. This is incredible stuff that football fans of yesteryear would never have dreamed of.
The likes of Twitter (or X), Facebook and Youtube have undoubtedly brought many benefits to the world of football. But what about the other side? The abuse of players, managers, and club owners. The impact on football players’ mental health. Their oversharing of personal information which can lead to very real danger.
I want to investigate the impact social media has on football and football players, and understand how it is used for good and bad.
Positive Impacts
Fan Engagement
According to a study by Future Platforms, 77% of fans follow their club on social media. That tells you everything you need to know about how successful these platforms have been.
Fan engagement is off the charts, and it is all down to social media.
The best clubs recognised this early, and many now have full time staff responsible for creating social media content to keep fans entertained. Whether it be player interviews, polls, behind the scenes videos or anything else, most publish social media content several times a day.
Players often publish statements on social media too. When Phil Jones finally left Manchester United, he broke his social media silence of many years to thank the fans and say goodbye. He did this because he knew it was the best way to reach as many of them as possible.
Over on Instagram, players often share pictures and videos from their home lives, including their partners and children. This gives fans a window into their real lives, humanises them, and brings them closer.
Marketing Revenue
Cristiano Ronaldo has over 650 million followers on Instagram. That’s almost twice the population of America. Imagine the marketing power of that.
View this post on Instagram
When Ronaldo publishes this post of him drinking Herbalife, the company’s sales are going to boom. He is an extreme example, but it’s the same idea for players and clubs with fewer followers.
If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Social media is free, because your eyeballs are being sold to the highest bidder. A club with 70 million followers can charge more for sponsorship than a club with 10 million followers. The more people you can push a product to the more you can charge for that service.
This is why Manchester United can still command huge sponsorship fees despite not enjoying much success since Fergie left. They are still one of the biggest clubs in the world off the pitch. It’s just a shame about what’s happening on the pitch…
Smaller clubs benefit from this too of course. The story of Dorking Wanderers is a brilliant example of how social media can be leveraged to make money for a club. Dorking started as a park team of friends, but were promoted 12 times in 23 years and eventually reached the National League in 2022. Their story was covered on Youtube and they now have fans worldwide, all buying merchandise and even buying shares in the club when Dorking went through a few rounds of investment. This would never have happened without social media.
Democratisation of Football
What I mean by this, is everyone now has a voice.
Before the internet, very few people were able to publicly give their opinions on a football game, for example. This right was reserved for official commentators and sports journalists in print and on TV. No one else had a platform. Now, complete randomers can host watch alongs or provide their own commentary of a game.
There are loads of other examples too. Maybe you want to voice your opinions via a blog and share it with your follower base on Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps you have a YouTube channel broadcasting match analysis and transfer commentary. And there are countless football related podcasts.
Numerous ‘normal’ people have used social media to create their own businesses connected to their club. Stephen Howson and Mark Goldbridge have both used Youtube to build a following who watch them discussing Manchester United. Howson has even ended up friends with Rio Ferdinand and other ex-players, and collaborated with them.
An example from the lower leagues might be Grimsby Town FC. They don’t have a fan owned channel, but their Twitter account has 75,000 followers. For a club with an average attendance that hovers around the 6,000 mark, that’s incredible. All of those supporters can interact with the club, share their opinions, debate with each other, etc.
Fans have never had a voice in football like they do today.
Negative Impacts
Player Performances
TIME TO FUCK OFF YOU LITTLE SHIT @antony00 https://t.co/uYRVDW5stb
— FUTURO (@FUTURO_MUFC) October 29, 2024
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you” – I like this saying, and it couldn’t be more true for football players.
Back in the day, if a player had a bad run they probably knew it, but could deal with it in training with their team and the coaches. These days, a player with socials will be hounded by literally millions of people giving them abuse. All of that negativity is going to have an impact.
In fact, it has been shown that using social media platforms before a game can hinder a player’s performance. There may be a particular comment that has got in their head. They may have been put in a bad mood by some negativity towards them. Perhaps comments about their appearance have made them self conscious.
The point is, social media is an unhelpful distraction from the game.
They should be 100% focussed on their training plan and what the manager has told them. However, if just 5% of their brain is still thinking about what @JohntheHammer said about their passing accuracy on Twitter, that’s a problem.
Players used to get upset about their player ratings in the newspapers before the internet was even invented. Social media turbo boosts that sort of negative impact.
Abuse
— Bukayo Saka (@BukayoSaka87) July 15, 2021
There is criticism, and then there is mindless abuse.
Social media gives a voice to legions of mindless idiots, and they all have direct access to everyone else using the same platform. If I want to call you a useless idiot, I can, I just need to tag you in my comment. People say far worse of course, but I’m not willing to repeat it here.
When Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho, and Marcus Rashford all missed their penalties in the Euro 2020 finals, the racist mob descended. The idea that they failed to score because they are black is incomprehensible to anyone with a brain. Yet, they were subject to horrendous racial abuse online.
Imagine the mental damage that could do to a young man in his twenties, already working under extreme pressure, and feeling depressed as hell because they just lost a European final.
In this specific scenario one man was even sent to prison for live streaming a racist rant aimed at the three players. An example of how some of the good aspects of social media – the democratisation – can work the other way. In any case, a man who would otherwise be free went to jail because of the connection between social media and football. You can’t tell me this isn’t a powerful impact.
Managers get it too, although managers are less likely to be on social media.
Before social media, angry fans making baseless, rude, and offensive remarks had no way of accessing players or managers. It was pub talk. Now, it’s almost like having their phone number.
Rumours and Leaks
We love a bit of gossip don’t we, especially when it comes to a sacking or a signing.
People go to twitter before anywhere else for the latest football news, because it is instant. There are even people like Fabrizio Romano who basically make a living from being social media journalists.
The power of social media has even contributed to the departure of certain managers, and probably players too.
A club that is being hit with wave after wave of sack demands can only close their ears to it for so long. An unhappy fan base is difficult to ignore, and they can eventually force the club’s hand. Probably not on their own, but as a contributing factor.
Savvy football agents have also started to utilise social media as a tool. If they release certain information they could accelerate transfer talks, or synthetically increase their player’s value. There have even been suggestions that agents encourage players to cause issues via social media comments in order to get them transferred. Agents make the most money during transfers, and if they can convince a player they are better off leaving, it can force the club’s hand.
Should Football Players Be Banned From Social Media?
If I was a football player, I would avoid it at all costs.
The mental anguish of dealing with all the negativity would be detrimental to my job and to my health. Then there’s the possibility of saying the wrong thing and getting myself in trouble. No thanks, I would steer well clear.
This is a view taken by plenty of players, but many more choose to engage. It tends to be the younger players, although not always.
I don’t think anyone can say that all football players should be banned from social media, because that’s very authoritarian. Clubs may do well to ban phones in the changing rooms before a match or something like that, but you can’t impinge on someone’s freedom outside of work.
I know that players will be educated on how to handle social media, to a point, and they well well be contractually restricted in what they can and can’t talk about. However, an outright ban wouldn’t be right.
I think better education which creates a culture of players not even wanting to have accounts would be better. Or perhaps only having official accounts run by an employee could work. If they wanted to say something it would go through someone else who could protect the players from themselves, and they wouldn’t accidentally see anything that would upset or anger them.
Then again, if that was implemented we wouldn’t get gems like this:
What to do about the negative impacts of social media isn’t just a question for football. It’s a question for the whole of society.
How do we reduce the bad bits without also losing some of the good bits?
We would miss the interaction and engagement if it wasn’t there, but allowing players to be racially abused on these platforms is unacceptable.
The impact of social media on football has been revolutionary. The way clubs do business, share news, hire staff, market and everything in between has been changed because of it. Social media can literally end careers in football, but it can also sky rocket the brands of clubs and players alike.