Social media is a part of the modern world now, with footballers using sites like Twitter just as much as anyone else, and why shouldn’t they? But we keep seeing problems cropping up, especially when clubs decide to host question and answer sessions with their players. You might as well just invite the fans of rival clubs to send in as much abuse as they can think of.
But there are also problems when players just use twitter off their own back. Because they are famous, anything they say could well become news and can also lead to some unfortunate responses and arguments. Our German defender Per Mertesacker, now retired from international football, has already taken himself off twitter once, about two years ago, after receiving dogs abuse following an Arsenal loss.
And I reckon that the BFG may just be about to do the same thing again after his heartfelt tweet honouring the 5th anniversary of the death by suicide of his friend Robert Enke, the former German international keeper who could not cope with the depression caused by losing his daughter.
But the thing about these social media sites is that they give cowards and idiots an easy way to spout their abuse with no comeback. But Per could not have expected the personal abuse as well as some general racist and callous responses, as reported by The Independent.
And by coincidence the same sort of thing happened to his fellow countryman Lukas Podolski, as another report in The Independent reveals. The striker tweeted about the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, a huge international event that is clearly hugely important to Germans especially. But of course, some morons thought it was more important to get stuck into Podolski, even some Arsenal fans suggesting that he was being insensitive by tweeting that after the Gunners lost to Swansea.
Time to call it a day on Twitter lads?