Manchester United players banned from social networking sites

Manchester United has banned players from using social networking sites, which has led to the Twitter accounts of stars Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs disappearing from the web.

In an official statement on the Manchester United website last night entitled “Player websites warning” the club said all official news relating to the club would appear on its official website ManUtd.com.

“The club wishes to make it clear that no Manchester United players maintain personal profiles on social networking websites. Fans encountering any web pages purporting to be written by United players should treat them with extreme scepticism.

Any official news relating to Manchester United or its players will be communicated via ManUtd.com,” the club said in its statement.

Along with Twitter accounts for Rooney and Giggs, Darren Fletcher’s Twitter account has also been removed.

Some reports have said that the Facebook accounts of Giggs, Wes Brown and Rio Ferdinand have had their content removed, but this morning the official pages of those are still up and running on the social networking site despite the apparent ban.

Social networking sites and Twitter in particular pose major problems for football clubs trying to closely manage their communications as stars use them as a direct avenue to talk to the fans and more importantly the press.