Twitter Ban?

The Danish FA (DBU) has decided they want to block players from using Twitter during the Euro's without consulting them. So far only Stoke City's Thomas Sørensen has responded to it with critique that this is the first he heard of this and that it makes no sense, the players are professionals and wouldn't let social media get in the way of performance. Not many of the danish players use it and there has really only been 1 incident where something went out of twitter when a danish league player tweeted very angrily about a referee's performance and made some comments about his new team, he lost the spot on the team for 2 match weeks but is now back, the player has never been close to the national team at any level.

Comments have gone around, some that struck me was that it was blocking freedom of speech, which was just stupid specially in two countries that have fairly high censorship compared to west European standards, that it is a wrong signal to send that the FA feels the need to control players

I think that it is a terrible idea, part of what sparked a bit of extra about the U-21 Euros for me was the usage of twitter by the players and such, some of the bigger players that were familiar with the social media tool got more players on and some now have lots of followers and use it fairly often, something that is always will be important for football, contact between the fans, the players and the teams. I think the danish FA is worried that there could be incidents where players tweet without thinking (We have Bendtner that is very possible, give him a PR guy for Euro's)

For the danish team Christian Eriksen and Nicklas Bendtner have the most followers with a large gap down to AS Roma's Simon Kjær who is by the best at connecting with his fans, bar the 3 and Thomas Sørensen the rest of the established national team players don't use the social media tool.


Discussion point perhaps is, could a ban like this be applied to your national team or should it even be possible. Personally I don't think something like this should be the FA's decision and they are not popular here in the first place after they let a case drag out for 5 years only to attempt to rape the guy financially (the attempt at punching the referee in a match against Sweden in 2007). I could imagine the England team getting hit a bit harder by a stupid idea like this, quite a few of them are on twitter should they decide to call a team that wants to win rather than all the old people . Do you think that usage of twitter or your FA banning it could have an influence on the teams performance (Negative or positive)?

I don't agree with it.

Every being is entitled to their opinion, it's the world we live in, yet players can't express their feelings to fans/critics to give their two cents of incidents. I don't agree with it, as long as they aren't been abusive I don't see how it can affect anything. It's just the same if not less worse than ranting to the camera's after a game about the riff-raff of the whole game.

I'm not an expert on Danish law, but surely this is in some way a violation of a footballer's freedom of speech/expression?

Very delicate. I think a full ban is a bit too far, but the players obviously have a responsibility to filter what they put out there as representatives for club/country.

Shouldn't happen imo, doubt it will influence their performance though.

I can see where they're coming from on both sides. The Danish FA want the players to be focused during the tournament, while the players will want a release after a hard game.

Muhkoo wrote:The Danish FA (DBU) has decided they want to block players from using Twitter during the Euro's without consulting them. So far only Stoke City's Thomas Sørensen has responded to it with critique that this is the first he heard of this and that it makes no sense, the players are professionals and wouldn't let social media get in the way of performance. Not many of the danish players use it and there has really only been 1 incident where something went out of twitter when a danish league player tweeted very angrily about a referee's performance and made some comments about his new team, he lost the spot on the team for 2 match weeks but is now back, the player has never been close to the national team at any level.

Comments have gone around, some that struck me was that it was blocking freedom of speech, which was just stupid specially in two countries that have fairly high censorship compared to west European standards, that it is a wrong signal to send that the FA feels the need to control players

I think that it is a terrible idea, part of what sparked a bit of extra about the U-21 Euros for me was the usage of twitter by the players and such, some of the bigger players that were familiar with the social media tool got more players on and some now have lots of followers and use it fairly often, something that is always will be important for football, contact between the fans, the players and the teams. I think the danish FA is worried that there could be incidents where players tweet without thinking (We have Bendtner that is very possible, give him a PR guy for Euro's)

For the danish team Christian Eriksen and Nicklas Bendtner have the most followers with a large gap down to AS Roma's Simon Kjær who is by the best at connecting with his fans, bar the 3 and Thomas Sørensen the rest of the established national team players don't use the social media tool.


Discussion point perhaps is, could a ban like this be applied to your national team or should it even be possible. Personally I don't think something like this should be the FA's decision and they are not popular here in the first place after they let a case drag out for 5 years only to attempt to rape the guy financially (the attempt at punching the referee in a match against Sweden in 2007). I could imagine the England team getting hit a bit harder by a stupid idea like this, quite a few of them are on twitter should they decide to call a team that wants to win rather than all the old people . Do you think that usage of twitter or your FA banning it could have an influence on the teams performance (Negative or positive)?

I don't think the use of twitter has any impact what so ever. I can see why it could be considered a distraction. What I would want the Danish FA to do, which they will never do, is put a small team of journos with the team, to cover their match preperation, their training and all of that stuff, then release it after the Euros are done. Showing Denmark just how much work goes into a Euro tournament. Having the focus on Morten Olsen would be an obvious plus, as I think he's about as "crazy" in his preparations as our own Egil "Drillo" Olsen. Not only would it satisfy fan demand for interaction, it would also be a pretty good way of getting some money for the FA. Danish people are about as crazy for football as Norwegians, and if something like that was released here it would be a massive hit.

Oh and it does not actually negatively impact performance, so they can't really argue that. The Norwegian ski-community have been doing similar things for the past 4 years now, and well, if anyone follow that they know that Norway hasn't exactly been performing badly in that catagory. Money, fan satisfaction and chance to have the national team be more appreciated. It's a win-win-win situation. Everyone loves a tournament documentary.