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Social Media Errors: The Best from the 2016/17 Football Season

Read Time: 5 minutes

The domestic football season is officially over. As always, trophies have been won, dreams have been achieved and for some, hopes have been diminished.We thought we’d look back on the last 10 months from a social media point of view, focusing on the biggest, funniest, and most disastrous Twitter gaffes by football teams and personalities.Social media is hugely important and said importance certainly extends into the world of sport, with organisations relying heavily on it to spread instant news and coverage to supporters and followers.It’s also proven to be a huge hit with athletes in regards to connecting with their fans and, in a lot of cases, increasing their worth to, and subsequent earnings from, brands and companies.This was certainly prominent in Manchester United’s much-debated record signing of Paul Pogba, with the Frenchman a hugely popular figure on social media, so much so that his name is known across the globe, much to the delight of his sponsors, who saw so much marketing potential in him wearing a United shirt that they contributed funds towards the transfer.So, without further ado, here are what we believe to be the biggest faux pas of the recent season:

August 2016 Christian Benteke signs for Burnley… whoops, we mean Crystal Palace

The Belgian striker was seen as quite the coup for Crystal Palace, who signed him from Liverpool for a fee believed to be around £27m. However, Palace fans’ excitement soon turned to bewilderment, as he changed his Twitter bio to ‘Burnleyl FC and Belgium national team”. He later went on to score against Burnley that season, but couldn’t stop his team from losing 3-2 to the Clarets. Chin up, Christian.

October 2016 Subtle, Victor

Despite wanting to believe social media is a gateway to the personalities and characters of their favourite athletes, most fans know that some sporting figures prefer to leave their tweets largely to a marketing team. And those who didn’t know, soon found out thanks to the haphazard activity of Sunderland’s Victor Anichebe. A clear copy and paste job straight from a request from his marketing team.

October 2016 Sunderland is so bad that a guy not even playing causes them problems

We all know that Sunderland had a terrible season last year. What we didn’t know, at least back in October, was that their defence was so bad that a guy could attack it from the bench. Yes, Sunderland’s media team tweeted that Southampton’s Nathan Redmond had skipped past one of their players before nutmegging another, despite the winger being on the bench, a fact soon pointed out to them by their opponents via Twitter.

December 2016 City star hacked

Where do people draw the line on a ‘frape’ these days? How about a Twitter hack that resulted in Samir Nasri being investigated by the Spanish anti-doping agency, as well as having to explain to his girlfriend that he did not, in fact, cheat on her with a woman supplying him with an IV Drip.The hacker tweeted the following from the star’s account:The Manchester City midfielder, who was on loan at Sevilla at the time, later told fans his ‘account got hacked’ and apologised for what had been said.

January 2017 Celtic defender proves old is gold

When posting online, it’s important to remember that this content stays there for all to see, and doesn’t expire. This was a lesson learned by Ryan Christie when someone recovered an old tweet after the defender signed on loan for Aberdeen, a club it’s safe to say he had strong feelings for back in 2012. I imagine it was an awkward training session when his teammates found out.

March 2017 Mum weighs in on Twitter Q&A Session

Football clubs often give fans the opportunity to determine the questions in an upcoming interview with one of their players.Leeds United opted to do this with Kyle Bartley and it wasn’t long before it produced social media gold, with the defender’s mum joining in, much to the delight of fans and, we imagine, his teammates. However, you only have to look back at Gary Barlow’s Q&A or Jack Wilshire’s the previous season to realise it could’ve been a whole lot worse.As always, Zlatan Ibrahimovic shows us how it’s done.

May 2017 Walkers get some ‘interesting’ brand ambassadors to join Gary Lineker

Walkers Crisps launched a Twitter campaign that gave users the chance to win two tickets for the Champions League Final. Sounds like a good idea, right?Consumers were told to upload a selfie alongside the hashtag #WalkersWave; this photo would then appear automatically in a video on their Twitter feed showing Gary Lineker holding the image.However, they didn’t anticipate some followers tweeting in pictures of known serial killers and sex offenders, such as Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris. Oh dear.

May 2017 Conor McGregor’s fighting who?

By now, everyone has heard of the big upcoming fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. However, back in May, it appeared bookmakers Coral got a tad confused, giving fans the latest update on the fight alongside an image of rapper 50 Cent.Yes, that’s right. The self-proclaimed “UK's most trusted & respected online betting site” mistook Floyd Mayweather, arguably the most famous figure in modern boxing, with 50 Cent, arguably the most famous figure in modern rap culture.

May 2017 “Thanks for letting me know!”

Most footballers will describe their job as a “short-lived career”; a precious time in which every moment is crucial because who knows, they could be released or injured at any time.This was a lesson learned by Alex Bruce in the toughest possible way, as he appeared to find out his contract was not being renewed via the club’s announcement on Twitter. However, it was later discovered by eagle-eyed fans that he knew he was leaving a few days before, telling a fan on Twitter that his ‘time at Hull is up’. Yes, we know this information means it’s not technically a mistake, but we still found it funny.So, there you have it. We can only hope the 2017/18 season proves to be as comical and embarrassing as the last when it comes to the wacky world of social media. Maybe we should get in touch with the likes of Victor Anichebe and Christian Benteke to see if they’d like us to manage their accounts…Oliver Wilkinson Marketing Exec Knapton Wright Ltd.
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