Wayne Rooney has joined Carlton Cole and Ryan Babel in being the latest footballer to be censured by the FA for comments posted on Twitter.
Rooney apparently threatened one of his Twitter followers after he took offence at something his follower had posted. He subsequently withdrew the remarks and tried to play them down as a bit of harmless banter. Which is quite believable, considering he referred to the follower as a "little nit". Ooooh! He knows how to wound! Maybe he started with a longer word, but had to trim it down to get his insults into 140 characters.
Liverpool's Ryan Babel was fined £10,000 for a Twitter post in January which linked to a mocked-up picture of a referee, whilst West Ham striker Carlton Cole accepted an FA Twitter charge regarding some xenophobic remarks he posted during England's 1-1 draw with Ghana at Wembley in March.
What this demonstrates is the importance of taking care with your online reputation. You might not be a Premiership footballer, but if you are in business you can be sure that someone somewhere will be Googling your name to see what comes up. So it's important to ensure that anything you post online represents how you would wish to be seen by your customers.
