It does sound a bit Big Brother-ish to tell footballers they shouldn’t Twitter and it raises a number of key legal issues which clearly the management of Man United haven’t fully grasped. Let me explain.
All footballers have very detailed contracts with their clubs and there will be clauses that deal with conduct, ie not doing something that will bring the club or its sponsors into disrepute, etc. There’s no distinction about the type of behaviour expected when talking to the media or conducting themselves in private as they are probably the most famous people on the planet. Therefore the singling out of Twitter as a medium of communication looks ridiculous.
Man Utd also owns the personality rights of these players when they are representing the club. So, for example, each of these players has been paid a substantial amount of money for the use of their likeness and image on merchandise that the club shop and other retailers will sell.
Likewise, when they pull on an England team strip and play for the national side, those personality rights as an England player are owned by the Football Association and again there’s a detailed contract in existence for the use of those rights.
What Man Utd can’t do, in my opinion, is seek to place any kind of control over the use of each player’s private rights as a citizen.
The right to Freedom of Expression is protected under the Human Rights Act 1998 that incorporates Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), so at the minimum it’s questionable whether Man Utd management have acted within the law by imposing this “ban”.
Furthermore, Article 8 of the ECHR provides that everyone has the right to Respect for his Private and Family life, his home and his correspondence. It’s therefore arguable that attempting to fetter right this is also unlawful.
Twitter expert Mark Shaw is absoutely spot on with the point about education. And in my opinion it applies equally to the Man Utd club management too.
Players of course need to be trained in the use of all forms of communication and training in the use of Twitter should be mandatory.
So instead of trying to “ban” Twitter, the management at Man Utd should be ENCOURAGING the players to use it in a responsible way as its a powerful tool.
More information about law and marketing can be found in Essential Law for Marketers as well as in the new 2nd edition that can be pre-ordered from this link.
