http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/14427415.stm OK let's get this straight - PFA are mainly a useless clown outfit and Gordon Taylor is a joker. But he's right in this case. A football club ultimately is nothing more than an employer for a football player. They have no right to dictate what the employee does during his spare time as long as it does't affect the club. Thus an employer has no right to impose a complete ban on social networking websites. Of course it's well within their their rights to tell the players what not to post, such as confidential information regarding the club. But they have no right to completely ban players from using such sites. If my employer told my I can't use Facebook I'd tell him to go **** himself. They have no right to tell me what to do outside work. It's the same with football players, even if a Premiership footballer earns more in a week than an average blue collar worker earns in two years they still need to have the same basic rights than the rest of us. I don't see the point of a total twitter ban anyway. Anything you can say on twitter you can say in an interview. So then you'd have to completely ban player from appearing in the public and having a life outside football. Let the players do their job, anything else they do that doesn't affect it is largely irrelevant.
So, if your employer who pays yo £50k per week and tells you not to use twitter, you would tell him to go **** yourself?
I might have slightly exaggerated that part Still I don't see what right does an employer have to impose such bans, regardless of your salary
As long as they do not bring the club into disrepute, the clubs dont have a leg to stand on.Players have the same rules and laws protecting them as the rest of us.
Personally I think its a load of Bollocks but employers have no right to ban it unless it affects them negatively.
Well isn't it? Anything you can write on twitter you can say in an interview. Rooney might as well have had an argument with some bloke on the street. We wouldn't ban players from going outside for that. And what's with Pardew's comments? That players can be sued for criticising the club on social networking sites? I've seen umpteen players publicly criticising their clubs but none of them have ended up in court for that. Doing it in the Internet isn't any worse. Besides whatever Barton tweets he can't bring the club into disrepute any more than they already are for having such a thug in their books. If they cared so much about their reputation they would never have signed him in the first place
