Think before you tweet: FA has made £350,000 in Twitter fines since 2011
• Governing body has investigated 121 cases in last three years
• Ashley Cole’s £90,000 fine is highest paid so far
• Harry Redknapp defends banned Rio Ferdinand
The £90,000 fine Ashley Cole received for calling the FA a "bunch of *****" on Twitter remains the largest handed out by the governing body. The £90,000 fine Ashley Cole received for calling the FA a "bunch of *****" on Twitter remains the largest handed out by the governing body. Photograph: John Sibley/Action Images
It is the fundamental rule of Twitter: Think Before You Tweet. Yet scores of people in football, ranging from global superstars to non-league officials, have broken it after they have felt the red mist descend. The consequences have included the placement of further pressure on the Football Association’s compliance unit and the realisation that an ill-advised click of a button can prove damaging and rather expensive.
Rio Ferdinand became the latest player to be punished for overstepping the mark on Wednesday when the FA fined him £25,000 and suspended him for three matches for a tweet that represented an aggravated breach of its rules as it included a reference to gender. More specifically, the Queens Park Rangers defender had referred to the mother of a Twitter user with the Caribbean slang term “sket”, which means promiscuous girl or woman.
The FA has collected around £350,000 in fines from social-media-related offences. Since 2010-11 when Ryan Babel, then of Liverpool, became the first player to be censured after he posted a photograph of the referee Howard Webb mocked up in a Manchester United shirt, the FA has investigated 121 instances of inappropriate comments on social media.
Of those cases, 18 have resulted in no further action being taken; 27 resulted in warnings; 16 resulted in the participant being reminded of their responsibilities and 60 led to charges. Of the charges, 33 have involved aggravated breaches of the rules which came into force in 2010‑11 and were tightened up in May 2013 as part of English football’s inclusion and anti-discrimination plan.
Added to the sanctioning element at that point was the introduction of an educational programme the FA considered as being important to guard against re-offending. Ferdinand has been ordered to attend the one-to-one sessions within four months.
The former England international is already a re-offender, having been fined £45,000 in 2012 for appearing to endorse a tweet referring to Ashley Cole on Twitter as a “choc ice” – a term that implies somebody is black on the outside and white on the inside. Cole, who is now at Roma, had to give evidence in support of his then Chelsea team-mate, John Terry, who had been accused of racially abusing Ferdinand’s younger brother, Anton.
Only two players have been fined more at any one time for social-media infringements. Cole was ordered to pay £90,000 in 2012 after he described the FA as a “bunch of *****” after they had questioned the evidence he gave on behalf of Terry while the Tottenham Hotspur defender Benoit Assou-Ekotto was fined £50,000 earlier in the year for his message in support of Nicolas Anelka’s “quenelle” gesture. Assou-Ekotto was also banned for three games.
In fifth place on the Twitter fines’ list is the West Ham United striker Carlton Cole. He had to pay £20,000 in 2011 for comments he posted during England’s friendly against Ghana. The FA has investigated cases at all levels of the game and the lowest fine that it has meted out was to the St Neots Town official, Mike Green, for remarks that he posted about a referee. Green had to pay £50. The FA is a non-profit organisation so it has put all monies collected from fines back into the game, from grass-roots level upwards.
Ferdinand has become the 12th player to be suspended for social-media offences, with the record ban being the eight matches David Deeney of St Neots Town received for sending threatening and discriminatory tweets.
