Ferguson in Twitter Haze
Sir Alex Ferguson has launched a withering attack on social networking website Twitter and hinted that players at Manchester United could be banned from using it.
Club captain Rio Ferdinand is one of the most prolific users of Twitter among the United squad and has attracted nearly a million followers.
Team mate Wayne Rooney also has a large numbers of followers tweeting repliers on his observations about life. Michael Owen and Nani are other members of the United squad that use Twitter.
Rooney found himself in the headlines for the wrong reasons this week when he threatened a respondent who had himself been abusive, although he said later his threat was not meant to be taken seriously.
Team-mate Darron Gibson took himself off Twitter after barely two hours last month when he received abuse from United fans.
Ferguson confirmed the club were looking at how best to solve those problems but the 69-year-old simply does not understand why anyone would want to be involved in the first place.
“I don’t understand it to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t know why anybody can be bothered with that kind of stuff. How do you find the time to do that? There are a million things you can do in your life without that.
“Get yourself down to the library and read a book. Seriously.
“It is a waste of time.
“It seems to have a certain momentum at the moment. Everyone seems to want to do it.”
Ferguson certainly thinks anyone with a high profile needs to act with a huge degree of caution.
“It is responsibility. They are responsible for their actions,” he said. “We as a club are looking at it because there can be issues attached to it. And we don’t want that.”
When it was pointed out Twitter can bring players closer to supporters, Ferguson was equally scathing.
“It would be better if they did it on the pitch.”
In a separate development a Premiership footballer is today suing Twitter after details of a super-injunction he obtained were published on the micro-blogging site.
The married player issued legal proceedings against Twitter, a US based company, and "persons unknown" on Wednesday in what is expected to become a landmark case.
He was one of a number of celebrities who were identified by an anonymous user on Twitter earlier this month as having obtained super-injunctions to hide alleged affairs. The list of celebrities has since been forwarded to an estimated 2 million people.
Twitter, which has millions of users worldwide, is based in the United States and so is it outside the jurisdiction of the UK courts.
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