During the FIFA World Cup games in South Africa earlier this year, players on several competing teams were unable to tweet and generally speaking to use social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, MySpace etc.
Today, both the Europe and the United States Ryder Cup teams have been banned from tweeting until after the end of the tournament.
“Tweeting and social network sites can get one into trouble,” said Colin Montgomerie, the European team captain, from Cardiff earlier today. He also added: ”It’s not a ban as such, we’ve just asked the players not to and they agreed.”
Similar bans occur in the U.S. as well. Players in the NFL, for instance, are not allowed to use social media during all games and during a 90-minute period prior and after a game. Furthermore, they can’t have someone else posting updates on their behalf.
This raises an interesting question for the sport generally speaking: will the sport federations have to regulate the way athletes, coaches, team leaders, captains and officials are using social media networks and blogs while participating or organizing sporting events, competitions and championships?
Could the federations rely on the sponsors’ agreements to rule Twitter and Facebook in their sport or will they have to actively look into this and police the social media through their very own rules?
What is your view on this?
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Thierry S. Huguenin
